by lobbying for new laws such as the DMCA and the "Sony Bono" Copyright Extension Act
The senator and entertainer spelled his name Sonny Bono. If it was a typo, it's not a big one. But what an APPROPRIATE nickname for this bill! Next let's see the Philip Morris Omnibus Appropriations Bill, and the Novell Netscape Lott Antitrust Act.
You've confused shock forces with sustained forces.
A sustained force of 1G is what keeps you on the ground. A sustained force of 9G will put your blood in your feet and you will black out after half a minute.
A shock force of 30G means that your soon-to-be-stubbed toe goes from regular swing velocity to zero in the space of the spongy thickness of the flesh over your toe's bone. This compresses your spongy tissue to almost nil, making a sharp pain. If you sustained that rate of backward acceleration, your body couldn't recover. But you don't sustain that, it's just a shock effect, and your body recovers just fine. Same goes for something rigid dropped on a carpet: it has to go from its normal velocity to its altered velocity (zero or bounced) in the span of distance of the spongy carpeting.
If one small independent record label didn't want to participate in this deal, could they sue Napster and cause the same controversy there is now?
That's a good one. Really. Let me catch my breath.
Okay, now, let me see if I have that right. "Can a tiny label that works out of a garage or on borrowed studio time make as big a media stink as the Sony conglomerate, AOL/Time-Warner, and other major media corporations?"
Do you think news outlets like CNN would have top stories about Napster, if they weren't in fact owned and operated by the massive media companies who are "attacked" by technologies like Napster? It is precisely the fact that it affects the big boys' bottom lines, that Napster is even newsworthy in the mass cultural sense.
Americans are spoon-fed from cradle to grave now, and the rest of the world is in danger of the same trap. We eat commercial interests at mealtimes, we breathe consumerism all day, and we sleep with dreams of capitalism all night. If it doesn't have the word "billion" in it, Corporate America doesn't care about it.
However, since the message was changed in formatting to HTML, the signature cannot be easily verified. You'd have to get back to the original file contents exactly, line breaks and all. Did he submit those URLs with [a href=""] tags, or did the slashdot editor insert them?
Not that it's likely very useful for Slashdot itself, but Slash and other should probably have a mechanism for "submit by file upload" and "read original submission file," so that more people can use signed content on the web. Slash already has a place for you to announce your PGP key [mine is posted], but the lame word-wrapping feature inserts a column of spaces.
It would also avoid some of that ugly "id so-and-so is the real User; everyone else is an impostor" check, by the way. Bruce Perens and anyone else who thought they were being forged could digitally sign their submissions.
The gravity is so weak that a 160 lb astronaut would "weigh" only about one ounce.
Given this, I was amazed that a 5 mph crash wasn't just a complete bounce. They're running out of fuel on the NEAR, so I don't know what their next choice will be.
Can they get it inserted into a stable orbit around the rock again?
Can they escape the gravity of the rock entirely?
Can they skitter across the landscape, trying for more landing sites and near-ground imaging?
Interesting thoughts on what to do with a now-disposable craft.
Operating Mechanical Shock 30 Gs, 2 ms, no errors Non-operating Mechanical Shock 300 Gs, 2 ms, no damage
If I understand correctly, a shock of 30 Gs is roughly equivalent to the impact after a straight fall from a desktop to a carpeted floor. (It's also akin to the force your toe receives if you stub it hard against a table leg.) That's not really a lot of shock padding in industrial settings.
I would say that the shocks encountered by battlebots would be a LOT higher, unless you put your computing unit inside a shock isolation system. Rigid metal banging against rigid metal at moderate speeds is an almost entirely elastic collision (almost a pure velocity bounce). Hundreds of Gs of shock force.
IBM sold technical specs, bus pinouts, BIOS ROM assembler source code and other data regarding the first IBM PC, sold in 1980. This was widely available information. I had an IBM binder with all of these items until it was lost in a move a couple years ago.
IBM was following in the footsteps of Apple ][, which went so far as to publish the schematics of all of their Apple and Apple ][ computers. It was an OPEN architecture.
IBM knew that the only way to make the machine catch on was to get any hobbyist with a breadboard to make cool new cards to fit inside.
Now, Compaq rewrote the BIOS from scratch, taking only the interrupt table and register content "API" for compatibility. Since they had an open book with the original source code, that's not "reverse engineering," that's "re-engineering."
Franklin copied Apple's ROMs verbatim, and were toasted in court for copyright violations.
It seems to me the only way out of this legal sinkhole would be to convince the Patent Office to...
Stop there. The USPTO doesn't get involved with the conflict once the Patent is granted. The courts have to do that. A Patent is a 'right to sue,' and only the suits themselves can resolve the Patent.
[stock rant on the subject]
Patents are not about who is right, or who is first; patents are
about who can sue.
The US PTO is a money-making service for the government, and this
fact is why it operates as it does.
There is a misconception that it is the central duty of the PTO to
form a blockade against granting patents. The PTO can and will block
applications where there's heavy similarity with prior art or existing
patents, but that's really just a guideline to using the service, not
the core function.
The PTO's purpose is to grant patents for a fee, and it's wholly
suited to do so.
The application vetting process of the PTO is a cost center
for the operation of the PTO. This is akin to saying that customer
service is a cost center for the operation of AT&T. It is
required, but they'll cut costs as much as they can get away with.
To fix the patent application vetting process, two things must happen:
Congress must stop using the PTO's filing fees as a revenue
source for other pet interests instead of the PTO's own budget, and
The PTO needs to allow third parties to aid the vetting process by
challenging potential patents before
they're granted.
At the minimum, if the PTO would publish the abstract for each patent
application at the time of filing, then third parties could submit
"helpful" arguments against controversial applications. The PTO
needn't publish the details, just the abstract; the PTO can then weigh
obviousness against challenges without incurring the costs of doing all
the searching themselves.
Once a patent has been granted, the Patent Office does not get
involved in disputes; that is a matter for the courts.
A stunning amount of data. I'm sure a few of those are nearby, I'm on the outskirts of Grand Rapids, Michigan, which as we all know is the center of the technology universe.
Lemme see... I'm surprised. There's one in Chicago. At least it's under 1000 miles from me.
From the writeup it sounded like it'd be useful to know which bus stops were in range... at this stage, the database helps you see whether you're in the right country or state. Maybe repost this once they hit several hundred, several thousand?
There is a real Trademark, and it is quite reasonable. You can not use the frowny emoticon as representing your trade in business cards and artwork.... I can't create a printing house and use the frowning logo.
That is not how Intellectual Property law works. You can use the trademark all you want. You can paint it on your house, you can sell posters on it. A registered trademark just means that the holder can sue you for it, and collect damages.
In this case, while they HAVE acquired:-( as a registered trademark, they are NOT using Carnivore to find infringers, they are NOT likely to care about your use of:-( at all. If ever, they'd only care about an egregious use of:-( as an identity mark to divert or confuse THEIR customers.
From the writeup, "I can't tell if this is a joke or not."
From the page itself, Articles and items appearing in our "Recent Spin" are satirical and are not intended to be an accurate portrayal of the persons, companies or events depicted within them.
This is SATIRE. Put on your thinking caps, people, or geez, read the whole thing! The CEO also claims he's considering changing his legal name to the frowney emoticon. Yeah right.
The question is this - do you have the right to translate signals that are travelling onto your property - signals which you did not request?
According to the law, no, you don't have that right. I don't agree with that; I still feel you should have the right to do whatever you want with the signals that are sent to your property. But this really doesn't matter one way or another in this particular case, because it doesn't sound like Hughes tried to press legal charges on those who did hack/crack the signal.
Here's the rub: Hughes made the cards, and Hughes "leased" or "licensed" the cards to real customers with EULAs. Hughes has the right to damage their own cards, even in your home, through the use of their FCC-licensed class and power of signals.
If you were a legit customer who had an old (and now burnt) H card, it dropped your service for a day or two while you stop by a service center. If you were a thief who got pay-to-view entertainment for free, then that burnt card is useless to you.
I have absolutely NO problem with the way that Hughes handled this.
FCC Request for Comments
Docket 96-45, Proposed Rule Making re: CHIP Act.
I am pleased to find that the FCC is requesting public
comments on docket 96-45, a rulemaking proposal related to the
CHIP Act. The following are my comments on mandatory computer-
based censorship, and why I feel that it would be both dangerous
and unethical for our government to filter the information
available to any of its citizens.
Firstly, computer-based censorship has been proven entirely
unfit for the task of accurately blocking or sanctioning either
text or photographic content. Computers are not able to make
subtle distinctions between HIV research, breast cancer studies,
images of people in clothing, or discussions of firearm safety.
A politician once said of pornography, "I know it when I see
it." That's just about the closest we as a society have come to
specific standards on what is obscene, and what is not obscene.
To some people, various images are purely artistic. To some,
the same images are an abomination to their religious or moral
fiber. With that dichotomy in place, and that inability for a
sensible and exact definition of obscenity, is it no wonder that
computer software cannot be made to comply?
Put in simple terms, computers cannot be offended: it's not
the censorship computer program that is doing the filtering of
offensive material, it is the human creators of the censorship
program who decide what other people may or may not access.
That brings us to who watches the watchers? If it's not the
censorware that is doing the censorship, then it is the
proponents and designers of the censorware instead, that chooses
what to hide from you. What political slant or prejudices are
these people harboring as they design their filters? What bias
or prejudice are you entrusting with the filter?
It has been demonstrated often that many software filters
available on the market today block any mention of competitors,
and also block any news story or website of the opponents of
such content filtering. It may be the government's intent to
block pictures of bestiality. It is in the best interests of
those proponents to also block any dissent with their own opinions
or objectives. If the same software blocks legitimate discourse
about whether censorship is ethical, how can anyone learn more on
the issues of freedom and democracy and the rights of citizens?
Government-mandated filtering via a commercial product means
that a private company becomes a de facto government bureacracy.
Many software companies are only a couple dozen or few hundred
employees. Think of the required complexity of ensuring that
several million, if not billions, of websites are blocked or
allowed according to government-mandated standards. Think of
the added complexity of oversight, reviews, and policy changes,
as different local and national standards are introduced. The
world wide web (just http: pages) grows and changes hundreds of
thousands, perhaps tens of millions of pages every day. Can the
government keep up with those changes?
If a government sets the standards for what to filter, then
the government opens itself to be responsible and accountable for
every blocked website. There will be millions of lawsuits where
website creators feels they are being censored unfairly. The
infrastructure to provide accurate and daily updates and access
to the operations of the filter will be required, and inaccuracies
will have to be addressable.
Public libraries have a mandate to provide open and
unfettered access to materials to all its patrons. Public
libraries do not have a mandate to babysit our children while we
run off to the market. If a parent cannot trust their child's
choices in conduct, then the parent should supervise that child.
It is not appropriate for the government to play nanny to these
children.
In closing, I'd like to quote from a favorite portion of a
famous document. It's not taken out of context; the author's
points were very clear and concise.
The Constitution of the United States
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or the right of the people
peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a
redress of grievances.
It is important for this government to conduct itself as the
founders intended. A government of the people, for the people,
by the people. Thank you for your attention in this matter.
And if you're a pissed-off journalist, attend Sony press conferences and tell them they can shove their products up their corporate backsides.
If you're a professional journalist, your job is to find out what's happening, and document it. Journalists shouldn't create the news, they should just illuminate it.
If you're an advocate (at its polite best) or a demonstrator or a protestor, then yes, I agree, the corporations and other media should be made aware of this sort of conflict between rights and controls. But stressing the word advocate, there's a right way and a wrong way to do that.
If a journalist sees an advocate acting rudely, disrupting a press conference, that can reach around and bite the advocate's cause: "some unruly demonstrators interrupted the press conference for a couple moments before security ushered them out with a twist of their arms."
You don't want to have the undecided or uninitiated people to see the battle as "<sigh>, them deluded hippie protesters using Beatnux, always chanting 'free code' and thinking they can change the world." That spurs antipathy, not awareness.
How about Braille dots? This should be easier to feel than just the letter-shaped raised ridges, and there's no concave areas to collect spilled/builtup gunk.
I didn't find any prebuilt braille-dotted keys, but did find these stick-on caps: hooleon.com. Incidentally, this company appears to do many weird things with keyboards.
Plastic is pretty obviously a Slashclone, but I can not find mention of Slashcode anywhere on their site.
Um, how about the large prominent "site based on SLASH" gif that is in the lower right corner of several pages; check their registration page. Clicking on the gif takes you to slashcode.org.
While I thought the approach was funny, in this age of technology, you may get bitten...
All they have to do is print the bre's (business reply envelopes) with encoded information about who gets which envelope.
"Mr. Taco. We are so happy you expressed interest in our services by returning the postage-paid flier. According to the slip of paper that was sent along with that envelope, '
By returning the postage-paid response envelope, you agree to the paid services listed below.' We have sent the first invoice with this notice, and are pleased to let you know that there are only four more payments of US$99.00 due within the next six months. Again, thanks for ordering our services, Mr. Taco."
Just what we need... another generation of spam darwinism.
I just cannot imagine reading the equivalent of five hundred paper pages on a 160x160 pixel screen. PalmDoc is useful for reference works, but I think it's got a long way to go before I load a novel on it.
(To understand what I mean, this little slashdot posting would fill a PalmOS screen.)
It seems that the RedHat exploit is at least as big a story as the Honeypot project. While they're both 'cracker' related, one is an opt-in research project and one is an advisory news item.
Don't they deserve separate top-level stories to clear it up? This isn't some downgraded Slashback or quickies thing. Both deserve their own thread.
Or is it just negative news about a pet issue, getting swept into a little dark corner at the end of something else?
"I'll show them! Oh, wait, that means fewer people will find my site. And click on my products / ads / whatever. And become a part of my online community. But by George, if I have to take it on the chin to show AV, that's what I'll do!"
Slashdot Mirror
In a true libertarian government, the judicial system would only have the ability to sentance[sic] people accused of crimes
I think I prefer our system where the judicial system first tries the case, then if found guilty, sentences crime committers.
by lobbying for new laws such as the DMCA and the "Sony Bono" Copyright Extension Act
The senator and entertainer spelled his name Sonny Bono. If it was a typo, it's not a big one. But what an APPROPRIATE nickname for this bill! Next let's see the Philip Morris Omnibus Appropriations Bill, and the Novell Netscape Lott Antitrust Act.
You've confused shock forces with sustained forces.
A sustained force of 1G is what keeps you on the ground. A sustained force of 9G will put your blood in your feet and you will black out after half a minute.
A shock force of 30G means that your soon-to-be-stubbed toe goes from regular swing velocity to zero in the space of the spongy thickness of the flesh over your toe's bone. This compresses your spongy tissue to almost nil, making a sharp pain. If you sustained that rate of backward acceleration, your body couldn't recover. But you don't sustain that, it's just a shock effect, and your body recovers just fine. Same goes for something rigid dropped on a carpet: it has to go from its normal velocity to its altered velocity (zero or bounced) in the span of distance of the spongy carpeting.
If one small independent record label didn't want to participate in this deal, could they sue Napster and cause the same controversy there is now?
That's a good one. Really. Let me catch my breath.
Okay, now, let me see if I have that right. "Can a tiny label that works out of a garage or on borrowed studio time make as big a media stink as the Sony conglomerate, AOL/Time-Warner, and other major media corporations?"
Do you think news outlets like CNN would have top stories about Napster, if they weren't in fact owned and operated by the massive media companies who are "attacked" by technologies like Napster? It is precisely the fact that it affects the big boys' bottom lines, that Napster is even newsworthy in the mass cultural sense.
Americans are spoon-fed from cradle to grave now, and the rest of the world is in danger of the same trap. We eat commercial interests at mealtimes, we breathe consumerism all day, and we sleep with dreams of capitalism all night. If it doesn't have the word "billion" in it, Corporate America doesn't care about it.
"New Star Trek Series Set for Fall"
I couldn't agree more. It's doomed for failure. It won't go anywhere. It's set for a fall immediately.
Oh! You meant 'fall' as in 'autumn.' My mistake.
However, since the message was changed in formatting to HTML, the signature cannot be easily verified. You'd have to get back to the original file contents exactly, line breaks and all. Did he submit those URLs with [a href=""] tags, or did the slashdot editor insert them?
Not that it's likely very useful for Slashdot itself, but Slash and other should probably have a mechanism for "submit by file upload" and "read original submission file," so that more people can use signed content on the web. Slash already has a place for you to announce your PGP key [mine is posted], but the lame word-wrapping feature inserts a column of spaces.
It would also avoid some of that ugly "id so-and-so is the real User; everyone else is an impostor" check, by the way. Bruce Perens and anyone else who thought they were being forged could digitally sign their submissions.
2001-03-14 15:09:26
As close to pi as I could render, ignoring the year and the inserted zero in the minutes column.
Heard on CNN:
The gravity is so weak that a 160 lb astronaut would "weigh" only about one ounce.
Given this, I was amazed that a 5 mph crash wasn't just a complete bounce. They're running out of fuel on the NEAR, so I don't know what their next choice will be.
Can they get it inserted into a stable orbit around the rock again?
Can they escape the gravity of the rock entirely?
Can they skitter across the landscape, trying for more landing sites and near-ground imaging?
Interesting thoughts on what to do with a now-disposable craft.
Operating Mechanical Shock 30 Gs, 2 ms, no errors Non-operating Mechanical Shock 300 Gs, 2 ms, no damage
If I understand correctly, a shock of 30 Gs is roughly equivalent to the impact after a straight fall from a desktop to a carpeted floor. (It's also akin to the force your toe receives if you stub it hard against a table leg.) That's not really a lot of shock padding in industrial settings.
I would say that the shocks encountered by battlebots would be a LOT higher, unless you put your computing unit inside a shock isolation system. Rigid metal banging against rigid metal at moderate speeds is an almost entirely elastic collision (almost a pure velocity bounce). Hundreds of Gs of shock force.
How was the IBM PC reverse engineered?
IBM sold technical specs, bus pinouts, BIOS ROM assembler source code and other data regarding the first IBM PC, sold in 1980. This was widely available information. I had an IBM binder with all of these items until it was lost in a move a couple years ago.
IBM was following in the footsteps of Apple ][, which went so far as to publish the schematics of all of their Apple and Apple ][ computers. It was an OPEN architecture.
IBM knew that the only way to make the machine catch on was to get any hobbyist with a breadboard to make cool new cards to fit inside.
Now, Compaq rewrote the BIOS from scratch, taking only the interrupt table and register content "API" for compatibility. Since they had an open book with the original source code, that's not "reverse engineering," that's "re-engineering."
Franklin copied Apple's ROMs verbatim, and were toasted in court for copyright violations.
Lazy? Make 'em links!
PureDiva: Software only bundled with complete PC's. http://www.purediva.com
Ligos: Windows based PTV. http://www.ligos.com/news/pr_timeshift.html
PowerVCR: Windows based VCR. http://www.cyberlink.com.tw/english/products/power vcr2/powervcr2.asp
WinVCR: Windows based VCR. http://www.cinax.com/Products/winvcr.html
SnapStream: Windows based PTV (freeware and commercial version). http://www.snapstream.com
ShowShifter: Windows based PTV (freeware). http://www.showshifter.com
It seems to me the only way out of this legal sinkhole would be to convince the Patent Office to ...
Stop there. The USPTO doesn't get involved with the conflict once the Patent is granted. The courts have to do that. A Patent is a 'right to sue,' and only the suits themselves can resolve the Patent.
[stock rant on the subject]
Patents are not about who is right, or who is first; patents are about who can sue.
The US PTO is a money-making service for the government, and this fact is why it operates as it does.
There is a misconception that it is the central duty of the PTO to form a blockade against granting patents. The PTO can and will block applications where there's heavy similarity with prior art or existing patents, but that's really just a guideline to using the service, not the core function.
The PTO's purpose is to grant patents for a fee, and it's wholly suited to do so.
The application vetting process of the PTO is a cost center for the operation of the PTO. This is akin to saying that customer service is a cost center for the operation of AT&T. It is required, but they'll cut costs as much as they can get away with.
To fix the patent application vetting process, two things must happen:
At the minimum, if the PTO would publish the abstract for each patent application at the time of filing, then third parties could submit "helpful" arguments against controversial applications. The PTO needn't publish the details, just the abstract; the PTO can then weigh obviousness against challenges without incurring the costs of doing all the searching themselves.
Once a patent has been granted, the Patent Office does not get involved in disputes; that is a matter for the courts.
[end of stock rant on the subject]
This engine currently searches 16 access points.
A stunning amount of data. I'm sure a few of those are nearby, I'm on the outskirts of Grand Rapids, Michigan, which as we all know is the center of the technology universe.
Lemme see... I'm surprised. There's one in Chicago. At least it's under 1000 miles from me.
From the writeup it sounded like it'd be useful to know which bus stops were in range... at this stage, the database helps you see whether you're in the right country or state. Maybe repost this once they hit several hundred, several thousand?
There is a real Trademark, and it is quite reasonable. You can not use the frowny emoticon as representing your trade in business cards and artwork. ... I can't create a printing house and use the frowning logo.
That is not how Intellectual Property law works. You can use the trademark all you want. You can paint it on your house, you can sell posters on it. A registered trademark just means that the holder can sue you for it, and collect damages.
In this case, while they HAVE acquired :-( as a registered trademark, they are NOT using Carnivore to find infringers, they are NOT likely to care about your use of :-( at all. If ever, they'd only care about an egregious use of :-( as an identity mark to divert or confuse THEIR customers.
From the writeup, "I can't tell if this is a joke or not."
From the page itself, Articles and items appearing in our "Recent Spin" are satirical and are not intended to be an accurate portrayal of the persons, companies or events depicted within them.
This is SATIRE. Put on your thinking caps, people, or geez, read the whole thing! The CEO also claims he's considering changing his legal name to the frowney emoticon. Yeah right.
The question is this - do you have the right to translate signals that are travelling onto your property - signals which you did not request?
According to the law, no, you don't have that right. I don't agree with that; I still feel you should have the right to do whatever you want with the signals that are sent to your property. But this really doesn't matter one way or another in this particular case, because it doesn't sound like Hughes tried to press legal charges on those who did hack/crack the signal.
Here's the rub: Hughes made the cards, and Hughes "leased" or "licensed" the cards to real customers with EULAs. Hughes has the right to damage their own cards, even in your home, through the use of their FCC-licensed class and power of signals.
If you were a legit customer who had an old (and now burnt) H card, it dropped your service for a day or two while you stop by a service center. If you were a thief who got pay-to-view entertainment for free, then that burnt card is useless to you.
I have absolutely NO problem with the way that Hughes handled this.
FCC Request for Comments
Docket 96-45, Proposed Rule Making re: CHIP Act.
I am pleased to find that the FCC is requesting public comments on docket 96-45, a rulemaking proposal related to the CHIP Act. The following are my comments on mandatory computer- based censorship, and why I feel that it would be both dangerous and unethical for our government to filter the information available to any of its citizens.
Firstly, computer-based censorship has been proven entirely unfit for the task of accurately blocking or sanctioning either text or photographic content. Computers are not able to make subtle distinctions between HIV research, breast cancer studies, images of people in clothing, or discussions of firearm safety.
A politician once said of pornography, "I know it when I see it." That's just about the closest we as a society have come to specific standards on what is obscene, and what is not obscene. To some people, various images are purely artistic. To some, the same images are an abomination to their religious or moral fiber. With that dichotomy in place, and that inability for a sensible and exact definition of obscenity, is it no wonder that computer software cannot be made to comply?
Put in simple terms, computers cannot be offended: it's not the censorship computer program that is doing the filtering of offensive material, it is the human creators of the censorship program who decide what other people may or may not access.
That brings us to who watches the watchers? If it's not the censorware that is doing the censorship, then it is the proponents and designers of the censorware instead, that chooses what to hide from you. What political slant or prejudices are these people harboring as they design their filters? What bias or prejudice are you entrusting with the filter?
It has been demonstrated often that many software filters available on the market today block any mention of competitors, and also block any news story or website of the opponents of such content filtering. It may be the government's intent to block pictures of bestiality. It is in the best interests of those proponents to also block any dissent with their own opinions or objectives. If the same software blocks legitimate discourse about whether censorship is ethical, how can anyone learn more on the issues of freedom and democracy and the rights of citizens?
Government-mandated filtering via a commercial product means that a private company becomes a de facto government bureacracy. Many software companies are only a couple dozen or few hundred employees. Think of the required complexity of ensuring that several million, if not billions, of websites are blocked or allowed according to government-mandated standards. Think of the added complexity of oversight, reviews, and policy changes, as different local and national standards are introduced. The world wide web (just http: pages) grows and changes hundreds of thousands, perhaps tens of millions of pages every day. Can the government keep up with those changes?
If a government sets the standards for what to filter, then the government opens itself to be responsible and accountable for every blocked website. There will be millions of lawsuits where website creators feels they are being censored unfairly. The infrastructure to provide accurate and daily updates and access to the operations of the filter will be required, and inaccuracies will have to be addressable.
Public libraries have a mandate to provide open and unfettered access to materials to all its patrons. Public libraries do not have a mandate to babysit our children while we run off to the market. If a parent cannot trust their child's choices in conduct, then the parent should supervise that child. It is not appropriate for the government to play nanny to these children.
In closing, I'd like to quote from a favorite portion of a famous document. It's not taken out of context; the author's points were very clear and concise.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
It is important for this government to conduct itself as the founders intended. A government of the people, for the people, by the people. Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Signed,
Ed Halley
And if you're a pissed-off journalist, attend Sony press conferences and tell them they can shove their products up their corporate backsides.
If you're a professional journalist, your job is to find out what's happening, and document it. Journalists shouldn't create the news, they should just illuminate it.
If you're an advocate (at its polite best) or a demonstrator or a protestor, then yes, I agree, the corporations and other media should be made aware of this sort of conflict between rights and controls. But stressing the word advocate, there's a right way and a wrong way to do that.
If a journalist sees an advocate acting rudely, disrupting a press conference, that can reach around and bite the advocate's cause: "some unruly demonstrators interrupted the press conference for a couple moments before security ushered them out with a twist of their arms."
You don't want to have the undecided or uninitiated people to see the battle as "<sigh>, them deluded hippie protesters using Beatnux, always chanting 'free code' and thinking they can change the world." That spurs antipathy, not awareness.
How about Braille dots? This should be easier to feel than just the letter-shaped raised ridges, and there's no concave areas to collect spilled/builtup gunk.
I didn't find any prebuilt braille-dotted keys, but did find these stick-on caps: hooleon.com. Incidentally, this company appears to do many weird things with keyboards.
Plastic is pretty obviously a Slashclone, but I can not find mention of Slashcode anywhere on their site.
Um, how about the large prominent "site based on SLASH" gif that is in the lower right corner of several pages; check their registration page. Clicking on the gif takes you to slashcode.org.
The point isn't the enforcability... but since when has that stopped spammers from assuming that they could get away with anything?
They'd just look at the conversion rate; "hm, 0.1% of them didn't fight it, they just bought the thing anyway. It's worth it."
While I thought the approach was funny, in this age of technology, you may get bitten...
All they have to do is print the bre's (business reply envelopes) with encoded information about who gets which envelope.
Just what we need... another generation of spam darwinism.
I just cannot imagine reading the equivalent of five hundred paper pages on a 160x160 pixel screen. PalmDoc is useful for reference works, but I think it's got a long way to go before I load a novel on it.
(To understand what I mean, this little slashdot posting would fill a PalmOS screen.)
I expect this'll get modded down, but...
It seems that the RedHat exploit is at least as big a story as the Honeypot project. While they're both 'cracker' related, one is an opt-in research project and one is an advisory news item.
Don't they deserve separate top-level stories to clear it up? This isn't some downgraded Slashback or quickies thing. Both deserve their own thread.
Or is it just negative news about a pet issue, getting swept into a little dark corner at the end of something else?
Riiiight.
"I'll show them! Oh, wait, that means fewer people will find my site. And click on my products / ads / whatever. And become a part of my online community. But by George, if I have to take it on the chin to show AV, that's what I'll do!"