I would NEVER want to be associated with any "union" that attempts to hurt small local economies because they didn't pay up union fees. It's racketeering if you ask me.
Sometimes t's worse than that. Sometimes it's real strongarm tactics. You're lucky they're not defacing the worksite and picketing at the house. Those were once common practices, and in some areas, it's still not unheard of. In your place I'd probably consider sitting guard whenever possible with a 10 guage and asking the police for increased drive bys.
That would be one of the worst things to happen to the tech industry.
One problem with Unions is that they often lock you into a fairly small geographic location for most industries - at least if you want to be able to work. My father worked as a union tradesman for 30 years, and had to pass up a lot of work in favor of unemployment because of the bloody stupid union.
Other times he had to go into non-union jobs as a "salter" at the risk of getting his ass seriously kicked - which I think happened once or twice, he wouldn't have told us kids. There wasn't always much choice, either.
What I remember of it as a kid is sneakers that had to be worn until they literally would not stay on my feet because I'd grown so far out of them my feet tore the sole right off. I remember knowing that the bank might come tomorrow to take the house away (we built it ourselves in the sticks near Brooksville Fla; I helped hammer nails, pull wiring, dig the foundation for the concrete slab and trenches for wiring and water pipes, and even roofing and siding - when I was 12 - and yes, we did eventually have to give it up). I remember my father being gone for months at a time so we could eat, traveling from Maine to Nevada, Florida to Washington State. All because we decided to move away from the locale where he held his union ticket. And, no, moving your ticket is NOT as easy as moving your drivers license. Verbal threats of bodily harm tend to put a damper on your willingness to follow legitimate channels to force acceptance too.
Unions tend to be highly political and unless you kiss the right asses, you can kiss your right to work goodbye. They are overblown bureacracies that are NOT run by people who actually work in the industry they are holding under their thumb. They are run by politicians that want to get more power and money (from the guy working for a paycheck) to put into some fund they can trash on the next Enron so everyones plans to retire with a halfway decent pension can watch it go up in smoke.
For the record, my father has stated on more than one occasion that if he had it to do over, he'd have avoided the union like the plague that it is.
The absence of unions in the tech industry is one of the most attractive things about it, in my not so humble opinion. Who needs union thugs defacing your website just because it doesn't have a "designed by Union drones" tag? Aren't there enough malicious hackers out there?
Before anyone starts talking about the "good" unions have done for trade workers, well, sure. They've done some good, but they're no better than the Spanish Inquisitors that did so much "good" in South America. What's so good about something that was accomplished on the blood of simple people just trying to get by? It may not be a violent as the history of the Catholic Church, but the history of unions is violent.
No Frickin thanks. I want my children to do without that kind of life growing up. I may have to pinch pennies, but not when it comes to fucking sneakers for my kids. And I'll damn sure keep it that way if I have any choice.
The only place I'd like to see unions put in place are in politics. That way we could shove some of their own damn medicine down their throats. Then again, it'd become damn impossible to get rid of the useless assholes wasting public resources for personal enjoyment.
Ok, enough of the vitriol. I dare say you get my drift though.
Much as I hate to admit it, you've got it right on the nose.
I know this firsthand, and unfortunately, I have to lump in a distressingly large section of the software development community - even in the web sector! Some time ago, I was tasked with implementing client side SSL functionality (HTTPS, actually) in a web based product, as well as running the internal analysis on several SSL appliances. I spent so much time trying to explain certs to the rest of the company (both technical and non-technical personnel) that I wrote a document with a brief overview and several links to online sources. When that didn't stem the flow of questions, I gave up and started working from home until I could actually get some work done.
Still, if you want to run your own HTTPS site, just create your own CA, sign your web cert with that, and make the public key available on the website (nonsecure) as a.crt file. Anyone coming to your site should have the option of installing your CA. Just make sure you use a strong passphrase on the private key and keep it well hidden - preferably somewhere not accessible from outside your firewall. While this isn't practical for commercial sites, it's fine for personal stuff - like running your own private webmail server or serving up private pics of the kids to family members.
And yes, $100, or whatever it is these days, is a scam, but the point is they do the due diligence to verify your identity - or they should. The real problem with this is that the company signing the cert bears no responsibility if they issue a cert for a "near-miss" domain, like "cnnn.com" or "WallMart.com" - I don't know if these are real, but they demonstrate the point.
If you go in dollars collected, then yes, I'd have to agree that Microsoft is way out in front. Dollar value on the other hand, is most certainly up for debate.
And of course the obligatory:
I for one, welcome our new open source overlords!!
Fox News is reporting the sold storage units are being repurchased by the military as they can find them
Why the hell are they repurchasing their own porperty?
Isn't that going to turn theft of military equipment and information into a whole economy?
Don't get me wrong, I don't think we should be there in the first place (IMHO, what little real benefit either the US or Iraq could ever hope to gain is nowhere near worth the lives of all those that have died), but if some bastard swipes my laptop, and I find out where it is, the last damn thing I'm going to do is buy it back. I don't care if the guy holding it is the one who stole it or not, he's not getting a nickle for something that's mine.
Well, now I know why I didn't find it. Seems that Apple has put the volume limit in for gen 5 iPods only. They did mention that it was only for a specific version, but I went dyslexic or something when I read it. They don't explicitly say the volume limit isn't there for certain models.
So, just to let everyone know, though I'm sure there won't be too many people reading this post now, if you have any ipod released prior to the nano or iPod video, you don't get a volume limit.
I wonder if this is a business decision or a technical one? Not that I wouldn't love one of those iPod Videos, but I did just buy the one I have, why would I sell it for half price and spend twice as much is I did for this one after only 7 or 8 months?
Ok, I skimmed over the documentation first time round, and it was late, but now I'm looking at the Apple site directions, verifying my iPod software version (20G iPod w/Color Display, v1.2.1) and there's no bloody Volume Limit.
Now, I know I don't need it - unlike many people these days, I at least try to take responsibility for my own actions. I don't leave it loud enough to be uncomfortable - generally low enough that I can hear people talking around me. Still, I'm a nerd, and more importantly, a parent and uncle. My daughter, niece, and nephew all have shuffles, so I should at least know how to work it for them, and of course, I was just plain curious how the new bell worked.
So, did anyone else go looking for it? Did you find it?
Uh, yes. I do report them. I'm pretty foolish from time to time, but I'd hardly complain about something like this in such a public forum if I hadn't at least given them the chance to correct the issue.
Well, I did report them at first. If I haven't tossed or misplaced the old messages, I've probably still got a couple hundred floating around somewhere that I sent to abuse@joker.com along with every other relevant address I could find, regarding phishing scams and pornographic spam. I was very diligent about it for some time back when I initially set up my old domain.
It took all of 3 weeks for the joker domains to start blasting me with more than 100 messages every day - the address was probably gleaned off of one of the dozen or so technical mailing lists I joined that were archived online. It took about 2 months to reach 200/day. 85% or so were from joker domains (and not just from a couple, there were several dozen). Every last one was reported for about the first month, then as you might expect, I grew tired of it and quit. Particularly since I began noticing the same domains coming back and getting no response from Joker - other than the occasional canned response.
Eventually I found Spamassassin and started filtering them out, quite successfully. Still, when things hit a solid 250/day level for about a 2 month period, I picked up another domain and shut that one off for about 8 months - which helped, but after turning it back on I still got a good bit of garbage on that domain.
So, yes, I did follow the high road, and gave them a reasonable chance to fix the problem I was seeing. Apparently they didn't see it or didn't care. Since I did report them, they certainly can be expected to take action.
My perception of the problem (which is only my humble opinion) is that regardless of the AUP and the fact that it requires valid contact information for each domain - which is almost never supplied, regardless of the law, and regardless of the obvious violation of generally acceptable online practices, they (and other registrars, Joker is certainly not alone here) don't want to terminate a service they perceive as having been paid for. Even when I did get the canned response from Joker (and other registrars) promising an investigation, there was no followup with me (which might be understandable) and I continued to get trash from the domain in question.
There are also problems with privacy in some of these cases. I once reported a domain for spamming (I don't remember the registrar or the offending domain offhand, it was 3 or 4 years ago), and promptly received a direct message from the "admin" of the offending domain promising my online life would be constant hell from that point on for reporting him. So, with no measureable positive results from that approach, and at least one direct threat stemming from it, what would you do?
Was it ok for the organization I complained to to provide the offender with my contact information? Hell no!
After that I gave up and started a dozen or so honeypot addresses to seed my filters then set up some elaborate self implemented tools to make managing it at my site easier for everyone I gave an account to. That's not a solution though. It's just finding a way to keep it from eating 2 hours of my time out of every day, and possibly causing some real damage. It still eats my resources and takes my time (albiet very little anymore).
Most of the phishing scams and obscene spam (farm girl on farm animal type of stuff) I get in my inbox and most of the popups I see on the internet are joker registrations. Half the time, these are completely out of the blue - I don't get surprised when I get this stuff jumping random links from altavista, but when I'm cruising gamebanshee, even very mild porn is out of place. And the spam is just inexcuseable. Before anyone suggests the obvious - like a virus or malware for the popups, I get this on FreeBSD and MacOS X, not Windows.
Now, I know very well that not everyone registering at joker is carrying on such questionable or downright unscrupulous behavior (certainly less than 1% I hope), but I don't look up the registrar of every domain I visit, just those ones I have a complaint against - which is probably true for most anyone on the net.
The problem is that Joker usually doesn't appear concerned about the activities it's customers engage in (AUP notwithstanding), so it might be that someone out there saw one too many popup or phishing scam coming out of a Joker domain and got no satisfaction at the abuse desk.
Of course this wouldn't be justification for screwing up everyone else's domain, but it's not outside the realm of possibility.
If I hadn't already posted in this thread, I'd have to mod that one up as informative.
That's not to say that young children and infants are all little geniuses that are squandered by the limitations of their little bodies, but it's clear when you watch many infants observing the world around them that they have thoughts and questions. The absence of language is the biggest barrier to overcome. Giving them some real interaction with a mode of communication they can muddle through more productively than the old "point and grunt" method is certainly a serious leg up in their development.
My daughter was using sign language at 8 months, and by 9 months old, she was becoming a voracious inquisitor. If she saw something she didn't have a sign for, she asked (she made up her own signs for this interaction). If we didn't have a sign for it, she made up her own. By 10 months old, she knew around a dozen signs for colors alone, several dozen for toys and environmental objects and phenomena (hot, cold, pain, tree, rock, rainbow, rain, clouds, sun, moon, etc.), a dozen animals (at least!) and of course, the necessities (milk, juice, water, diaper change, food - cereal, fruit, etc) She also began making up signs on her own, sometimes without telling us until it was time to guess. That made things very interesting at times, but quite fun. By 14 months, she had well over 120 signs. And no, I don't think this is exceptional (though I do think my daughter is:), it's just a result of constant interaction without any pressure to advance faster than she wished.
For each sign she knew, she certainly recognized the spoken word associated and could demonstrate on verbal interaction without the object being present. She just focused more on the meaning than on teaching her mouth to make the sounds come out right.
So, I don't think the scientists are getting the whole picture when they restrict their research to actual verbal language. Studies have shown (both formal and informal, but don't ask me for the links - find them yourself if you're that interested) that children are intellectually capable of beginning their mastery of language much earlier than 10 months. The problem is that most people (scientists and non-scientists alike) forget that a physical inability to form words doesn't mean an intellectual inability to understand them.
Personally, and I have no evidence to support this, anecdotal or otherwise, I think babies begin linking sound to meaning as soon as they can visually focus on their parents, and hear their voices. Voice has been suggested as a major factor in bonding between mother and child, and I think there was a study done about this some time ago. There's probably a lot more physiological detail here that I'm certainly not qualified to expand on, but right or wrong, that's my opinion for the time being.
The only trick with sign language is in realizing that babies will use their mouths for getting food in and tasting things - which doesn't really require much oral dexterity, but they use their hands and fingers a lot more when pulling ears, noses, hair, etc. and when poking eyes and grabbing things to put into their mouths. They learn hand dexterity more quickly than they learn how to use their tongue - after all they can see what they're doing wrong with their hands and learn from it. Even so, they don't get signs as precise as an adult would, but they get them close enough for a parent - or anyone communicating with them regularly - to understand them perfectly. Some people have expressed concerns that using sign language will delay verbal language use, and this appears to be true in a small percentage of cases, but the only time I've ever seen it is when there were other issues with hearing that weren't caught early enough.
After our experience with sign language the first time around, we enthusiastically recommend it to anyone and everyone we come across with a small infant (at least those that stand still long enough to listen), and we plan to introduce it even earlier with our next child, coming later this year.
This was reported on NPR back in January, Hansen was on an interview shortly thereafter (early February, if I remember right), and has been reported online in great detail, including George Deutschs fall from grace after he was exposed as a fraud.
For those who didn't know offhand, Deutsch is the person who was primarily (though not solely) responsible for the censorship attempts within Nasa. It turned out he never graduated from Texas A&M as his resume claimed, because he left early to work the Bush campaign - can you say Plum Pie?
The author of the Scientific Activist blog, Nick Anthis, is the person that initially uncovered Deutschs falsification of his resume and tipped off the NYT (and never got credit for the scoop, can you believe that?). This was back in early February.
It seems to be time to start preparing to launch more orbit-based telescopes.
Isn't that like buying a new car so you don't have to bother fixing the old one's windshield?
Why not start focusing on cleaner fuels now (both for terrestrial and space travel) so those blokes stuck on the ground can keep their telescopes for more interesting pursuits than spying the fat old lady next block over?
And keep in mind, this article may not take into account that there will probably be about 2 billion more cars on the planet by then, so we could actually be looking at 2030, not 2050. (hint: invest in parking spaces in China NOW and don't say I didn't tell you so)
This company is probaby following the standard "lawn dart" trajectory.
Really, they're going to harvest nanotubes from clay? If they're so bloody ubiquitous in clay, why are labs spending millions to figure out how to manufacture them?
And where the hell are they gonna find a funnel small enought to get the copper in?
Seriously though, this article was obviously written by someone who has no tech sense whatsoever.
From the article:
It is also another breakthrough application of nanotechnology, the emerging science of harnessing sub-microscopic organisms for everyday uses, like stain-resistant pants and transparent sunblock. The National Science Foundation has predicted that nanotechnology eventually will be a trillion-dollar industry.
Now, since when does a carbon based nanotube qualify as a "sub-microscopic organism"? They better be careful, they'll have PETA after them for using living organisms in paint...
It's pretty amusing, the way the prediction from the National Science Foundation was worked in there, almost like a direct endorsement.
Can you say "Scam"?
Exactly. I myself run FreeBSD on a system I bought from Dell. It came with XP Home preinstalled, but I never even booted the OS before upgrading it. The disks sit unused in my CD case - some people can't throw anthing away.:|
This is a private server running HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP and IMAP services for just a few people, but it is a server on the internet, available at a static IP and domain. It also did not present any financial weight to the *nix ledger sheet - and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC, FreeBSD is a Unix distribution, unlike Linux, wich is merely a "Unix-like" OS.
The obvious result of this common practice is that it skews the numbers this set of statistics presents. Sure they deal with the MS Server distribution, but how many companies buy it, then don't use it because a *nix distro is better for their needs? Maybe not a lot, but almost certainly some do this.
I doubt it. It explicitly measures progress in dollar sales. Keep in mind that the Linux distros are essentially cheaper than the MS distro, and there are a lot of *nix servers out there that are not "sales" installations.
How many ISPs and hosting companies use free distros of Linux, FreeBSD, and/or OpenSolaris? None of that is considered in these numbers, which essentially makes them a little less significant when considering the most widely used or most reliable OS.
Now, a set of statistics that would be meaningful is the sheer number of servers out there running each OS. You can break this down to private and commercial for even more useful information. You can also break these down by bytes delivered and what kind of service they provide (FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, etc) and how much traffic they push. The traffic pushed is really more significant, because it will tell what operating systems are more trusted by companies that require obscenely high uptimes and high traffic volumes.
For instance, how many CDNs use MS? Mirror Image uses Solaris and in some applications, Red Hat Linux (I know, I used to write code for MII). I believe (but cannot confirm) that Akamai uses Linux, and I don't know what the other CDN players use. Now, take into account that between them, these networks probably handle a disproportionate share of internet traffic, and you pretty much start to wonder what the big deal is.
Then again, money makes the world go around, so in that sense, these numbers probably aren't totally irrelevant. I just don't think money is enough to rate a "Top OS". Maybe a "Top Revenue OS"? Who cares? That's just a way of saying it's expensive and the everyday user, geek, or small company can't be bothered with it.
Regardless of government censorship or record seizure, there will be an exchange of ideas with the internet present in China. And there will be improvements that would not be possible without the internet.
That doesn't mean this journalist is home free. He may get it a lot worse than the poor guy Yahoo! was recently forced to turn records over on.
Anyone think that will stop the next guy?
Still think Yahoo! should pull out of China?
This guy was lucky (or unlucky) enough to have access to the newspapers website. The average person isn't going to have such a place to express these objections unless they have access to a Yahoo! website or something of the sort.
I think this will give China a better chance of getting out from under communism the way they want to than any form of outright revolution. And it will cost a lot fewer lives.
sending me spam garbage promising I can "work at home" and make umpteen thousand dollars a month part time, when all I really want is a F@&#ing developer gig. If I wanted a stupid infomercial miracle job, I'd stay up 'til 3:00 AM looking for the stupid infomercials.
I mean really! Are they honestly that stupid?
You know who you are. <Cough>(TrueCareers!)<Cough>(CareerBuilder!)
Dice is the only site that never sent me spam and actually got me in touch with a recruiter that didn't schmooze me for an hour, promise me a dream job, then stop taking my calls. 2 months after getting my resume on Dice, I had a job, where a year on Monster, TrueCareers, HotJobs, CyberCoders (yah, every last one of their "company confidential" postings were actually copied from one or more other job sites), and BostonWorks yielded only spam and incompetent recruiters. I just hope all the incompetent recruiters don't read this and start tainting Dice.
Everyone else sent me spam. F@&#ing idiots. How bloody stupid can you be to try spamming an obvious "thought" worker with stupid (and obviously bogus) promises of mindless success using a clearly questionable method of delivery?
Soulless? Well, depending on what we mean by that word, it may or may not be true.
I think you pretty much hit my actual meaning in that paragraph. In his book "Freedom Evolves", Daniel Dennet suggests an interesting difference between the religious concept of a soul (which he calls a "supernatural" soul) and a more secular concept of a soul - a "natural" soul. While his book is a highly technical philosophical discussion, most of which I don't think I got just right, I believe I understood a good deal of what I made it through, and I've been unable to honestly disagree with any of it. So, I do believe in the concept of a soul, and I do believe I have one, but it's no different in my mind from the "soul" of a bluebird, or squirrel, or cow. This doesn't make me guilty to be a meateater, either (seeing myself as part of nature, this is part of my natural existence), it does, however, makes me respect the origin of my food a little more. You might like that book, but be warned, it's not light reading.
Being open minded toward vastly different viewpoints is very brave and commendable in my opinion.:) [...]
It may be brave, but it certainly is not easy. The pitfalls you mention are probably the more minor ones in my view. The biggest (and most feared one in my opinion) is that of hypocrisy. It's a very fine line to be sure. What makes it more difficult to do, is an intolerance for intolerance itself. I have the hardest time discussing any issue of faith with people who do nothing but quote the Bible as "proof".
In my opinion spiritual life consists not in asking oneself "What should I think?" but in asking oneself "Why do I think this way?" Any organization that tells you what, when and how you should think is a disgrace. Any organization that helps the person to explore their own true condition by means of experience and reason is commendable, in my opinion. Almost everyone I know is overtly or subtly pushing this or that view onto others. Heck, even I am not immune to that weakness and may be pushing some view onto you.:) So it's good to take it with a grain of salt, but I believe it's even better to take one's own views with a grain of salt. A think a person who takes their own views with some degree if skepticism is not prone to willy nilly taking up the views of others as his/her own, because once a view is one's own, it'd be immediately questioned. So a person, who instead of questioning others questions oneself, is the most immune-to-bullshit person, in my opinion.
Now, this paragraph really hit the nail on the head for me. I had a long drawn out discussion with a cousin of mine on the importance of questioning one's own beliefs about a year and a half ago, and more recently I published a "thought out of the blue" that elaborated on it a little. I think you'll find we strongly agree on this point. Many of the other posts there demonstrate the difficulty with openmindedness as well, and probably highlight my failure in avoiding them.
And going back to China, I think you might be overcomplicating things a little. My point is that having some tool to promote (even surreptitiously, given the oppressive government) the exchange of ideas is the primary value to the Chinese people. Not just the flow of ideas from outside China, as would have been provided by "Voice of America" in the former USSR, but the flow of ideas within China. As I mentioned in one of my previous responses, it's about helping them realize the "dissidents" outnumber the comformists, or those that support the government, and helping them decide what they belive as members of the Chinese culture. They'll realize this much sooner with a restricted internet, than without any internet.
to turn this into a kind of open source P2P(roxy) movement?
Think about it. This guy is spending a lot of resources to help people in China get the one thing that will help - free access to the exchange of information and ideas.
While Yahoo! cannot (openly) flout Chinese law, there's nothing illegal about Joe Geek installing an open source P2P application that allows him to share a small chunk of his bandwidth at home to provide access to content that the Chinese gov't has banned.
Personally, I'd sign right up. In fact, I might even volunteer a little time to work on development of the utility.
It would certainly add more "freedom value" to the presence of companies like Yahoo! and Google.
Of course, anyone openly doing so would have to pretty much avoid China for a good long time.
I hope you agree that if Yahoo is not carefully in how it conducts themselves in China, they may do more harm than good. What you say only makes sense if Yahoo's intent truly is to open up informational horizons and not just to make money.
Well, that all depends on how you look at it. From a more academic view of how to best make the most money, a market must have the largest customer base - among so many other things, but it's much easier to make more money with 1 billion customers than with 250 million. To that end, it is most certainly not in the best interest of Yahoo! shareholders (from a purely greed driven standpoint) to simply toss up their customers to the wolf everytime it comes sniffing around. From that point, I could argue that it's not really relevant what Yahoo! intends to accomplish. If they want to do good, then following the law only so far as they have to is the best way to do it (given that having internet access is better than not). If they simply want a disgustingly huge market base in the long term, then the same holds with respect to following the law. In other words, if they're smart greedy capitalists, well, that's too bad, but at least they're not stupid greedy capitalists, which would be very bad for the Chinese people. This might be better explained by the economic theory for which John Nash won a Nobel Prize (see""A Beautiful Mind" with Russell Crowe). Basically, it is in the best interest of a company to do not what is best for the company, but what is best for everyone.
When I say "physical life" I mean the person has unswerving faith in the view of immutable existence of substance, where all other properties are emergent from this substance in one way or another. A person who has uprooted their faith in the view of substance is no longer an ordinary person. This doesn't mean the person is escapist and can't face the "physical reality" so to speak. Quite the opposite in fact. They are the ones who CAN fully face it, fearlessly and then go beyond it by facing it in fearless way.
Pretty deep. I think I understand what you're saying here, but as person with faith in Science alone, I suspect I may be missing something. I'll certainly keep this in the back of my mind though.
For the record, I am not associated with any religions or movements or cults or whatnot. In this I am more or less a loner.
I knew we had something in common. I'm pretty much a soulless athiest in search of world peace and harmony myself, so I tend to look at these issues with more of an open mind with respect to morality and right and wrong. Unfortunately I still have to watch myself when it comes to respecting religion, particularly the one I escaped from. Of course, that doesn't preclude any personal sense of right and wrong, but it helps (at least I think it does) in understanding other viewpoints, and in cases like Yahoo! in China, trying to see some good that doesn't require the black-and-white view of the world that is usually typical with many religions.
I have to admit, this is by far the most interesting discussion I've had on any sociopolitical issue in a very long time. You have very interesting (and valid) viewpoints. To a point, I do agree with you.
I do think, however, that broadening out the responsibility could do more harm than good in this case. I'm sure Yahoo! isn't volunteering dissidents , and I'm sure they are only giving access to information explicitly requested. They'd lose a big portion of their customer base in China and elsewhere otherwise. This is the only way they can stay in China. If they refuse these "requests" from the government, they get chucked out of the country. If this were to happen, it would be much more difficult for people to learn that they're not the only ones that disagree with the government.
I vaguely remember an anecdote about a discussion held in the senate of Ancient Rome. It goes to the point of slaves, and knowing who is or is not a slave. Apparently one senator recommended that all slaves be forced to wear a mark of their status so that they could be easily identified at a glance. This was quickly rejected when another senator suggested what would happen should the slaves in Rome discover how drastically they outnumbered the free citizens of Rome. It would be open rebellion and the slaves would destroy Rome in a day.
Keeping Yahoo! in China, even under the oppressive requirements imposed by the government gives the people in China that want something better, a much better chance to share their ideas, and more importantly, learn exactly how much they outnumber their oppressors. Tiannenmen (sp?) square was a tragedy that could have been avoided if those people had been able to learn more beforehand. It's not going to be easy with the restrictions in place, but they will manage it if they have access.
About 9 years ago, I worked with a young man who was in the square when the massacre happened. He saw the footage that made it out of the country, and made it very clear that that only represented the tip of the iceberg. He himself was "detained" by the government for about 18 months, and when he was released, he took his first chance to get out of the country. After several years, he was still terrified of any aggressive authority figure, firearms (of any kind) and always seemed nervous in closed spaces. We found this last detail out when we went exploring in some local caves. After an aborted initial trip, he declined other invitations.
Though he never would discuss exactly what happened to him, I have a very small inkling of what dissidents might go through in China. I still think they would rather take the chance than live with another 30 or 40 years of useless boycotting from outside China without that opportunity.
And as will likely be proven in the Middle East, if a people don't want to be free, nothing else in the world can make them free. If the Iraqi people decide fending for themselves is just too hard, you'll see another dictator running the place within a decade. And the people won't lift a finger to stop it.
I agree that corporations should have a moral rudder of sorts, but the real bitch about morality is that it's so bloody different from person to person and country to country.
I don't know if "Voice of America" was intentionally broadcast into the USSR, but even if it was, that was an act of war. Matter of fact, IIRC, the US was at war (sorta) with the USSR through the 60's and 70's. Both governments supported obscenely bloated espionage programs to keep an eye on what was going on in the other country. I'm sure there are similar programs supported between the US and China, but I seriously doubt they are anything to compare with those used between the US and the USSR.
Personally, I'd love it if Yahoo! had a leg to stand on in refusing the Chinese government. They've had to make a choice. If that choice had no benefit other than money, I'd be pretty angry at Yahoo!. As it is, I think the focus should remain on the real villain, which is the Chinese government.
And the comparison between the shortwave radio broadcasts of "Voice of America" to the internet is not really accurate. While I'm sure the radio broadcasts were beneficial in spreading American Ideals, it didn't help the Soviet peoples spread their own ideas. I suspect that might have been much more valuable. Personally, I think a viral US government is a very bad thing for the world. It would be much better to promote the freedom of the exchange of ideas than simply promote the American Ideal. The American Ideal just isn't right for everyone.
Hell, it's not even right for some Americans. Else there wouldn't be Freaks like Fred Phelps running around screaming that "God Hates Fags".
Even the woefully restricted internet access available in China now is going to promote an exchange of ideas within China, regardless of what the government does. That will be a positive impact that wouldn't be available without Yahoo!.
Once again, I agree that the arrest of this one person is a bad thing. I'm just not sure it should be blamed on Yahoo!. They have no choice but to follow the law (right or wrong) in China if they wish to continue bringing internet access to the Chinese people. Of course it would be a huge loss to pull out, they'd lose all the infrastructure they've built, all the computer systems they have there, and that's certainly a financially motivated decision, but then the government would get access to all those records anyway. So could Yahoo! really have prevented it? I doubt it.
As far as pulling some heroics to delete the data before the government came for it, it's not reasonable to expect a bunch of computer geeks to go commando against a trained military. That information would have been taken one way or another.
It can be ignored. There are consequences for all actions, be it ignoring or be it acquiescing. I am going to promote conscious and deliberate moral choice over the de-facto acquiescing to "ambient-like" laws. In other words, I strongly advise people to get rid of the mindset that "laws are just there." Nothing is just there.
Well, you're at least part right. It can be ignored if the consequences are an option. In this case, the consequences for refusing to acquiesce is being tossed out of China. The Government then comes up with their own state owned service, and control it with an iron hand, or worse, they just plain outlaw internet access altogether, maybe even privately owned computers - let's take one of the two largest countries in the world back to Soviet Russia days.
And who ever said "laws are just there"? I never did. I don't believe they are just.
That's the better reason for "obeying" the law, and staying in China. And because of conditions in China, I'm sure the profit margin is pretty thin, if it's even there. Of course losing a little money now isn't likely to be withstood simply for huminatarian reasons. It'll pay off later - hopefully, if conditions for the people in China approve. That payoff is probably the real reason they're there "obeying" the law, but so long as things do improve, even slowly and with unfortunate victims, it's better to have Yahoo! there. They may or may not be making a moral choice, but who cares. I think in the long run it's better than leaving the Chinese people without the benefit of internet service, even one hindered by an oppressive government.
And before anyone suggests it, no, I am not nor have I ever been a stockholder in Yahoo! or Google, nor have I ever been affiliated with either in any professional capacity.
No, this isn't the way corporations work, and it's not the way law works. If France has a law requiring unfettered access to certain records in the event of a terrorist investigation, but the US has laws protecting those records without more concrete evidence - and then only provides limited access, whose laws take precedence if the records are generated in France? Not US law.
Yahoo! operates in France under the same restrictions - and freedoms, as any other corporation in France. Otherwise, how could they be competitive? And corporations aren't "using" legal systems other than to understand the rights they have and responsibilities they must meet in order to be allowed to operate in each country.
If an American citizen flies to Amsterdam and smokes a bit of hash in a coffee shop, can they be prosecuted when they return to the US? Nope. They didn't break the law. US law only applies on US soil. The US can't make the law anywhere else - at least not without going to war.
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I would NEVER want to be associated with any "union" that attempts to hurt small local economies because they didn't pay up union fees. It's racketeering if you ask me.
Sometimes t's worse than that. Sometimes it's real strongarm tactics. You're lucky they're not defacing the worksite and picketing at the house. Those were once common practices, and in some areas, it's still not unheard of. In your place I'd probably consider sitting guard whenever possible with a 10 guage and asking the police for increased drive bys.
That would be one of the worst things to happen to the tech industry.
One problem with Unions is that they often lock you into a fairly small geographic location for most industries - at least if you want to be able to work. My father worked as a union tradesman for 30 years, and had to pass up a lot of work in favor of unemployment because of the bloody stupid union.
Other times he had to go into non-union jobs as a "salter" at the risk of getting his ass seriously kicked - which I think happened once or twice, he wouldn't have told us kids. There wasn't always much choice, either.
What I remember of it as a kid is sneakers that had to be worn until they literally would not stay on my feet because I'd grown so far out of them my feet tore the sole right off. I remember knowing that the bank might come tomorrow to take the house away (we built it ourselves in the sticks near Brooksville Fla; I helped hammer nails, pull wiring, dig the foundation for the concrete slab and trenches for wiring and water pipes, and even roofing and siding - when I was 12 - and yes, we did eventually have to give it up). I remember my father being gone for months at a time so we could eat, traveling from Maine to Nevada, Florida to Washington State. All because we decided to move away from the locale where he held his union ticket. And, no, moving your ticket is NOT as easy as moving your drivers license. Verbal threats of bodily harm tend to put a damper on your willingness to follow legitimate channels to force acceptance too.
Unions tend to be highly political and unless you kiss the right asses, you can kiss your right to work goodbye. They are overblown bureacracies that are NOT run by people who actually work in the industry they are holding under their thumb. They are run by politicians that want to get more power and money (from the guy working for a paycheck) to put into some fund they can trash on the next Enron so everyones plans to retire with a halfway decent pension can watch it go up in smoke.
For the record, my father has stated on more than one occasion that if he had it to do over, he'd have avoided the union like the plague that it is.
The absence of unions in the tech industry is one of the most attractive things about it, in my not so humble opinion. Who needs union thugs defacing your website just because it doesn't have a "designed by Union drones" tag? Aren't there enough malicious hackers out there?
Before anyone starts talking about the "good" unions have done for trade workers, well, sure. They've done some good, but they're no better than the Spanish Inquisitors that did so much "good" in South America. What's so good about something that was accomplished on the blood of simple people just trying to get by? It may not be a violent as the history of the Catholic Church, but the history of unions is violent.
No Frickin thanks. I want my children to do without that kind of life growing up. I may have to pinch pennies, but not when it comes to fucking sneakers for my kids. And I'll damn sure keep it that way if I have any choice.
The only place I'd like to see unions put in place are in politics. That way we could shove some of their own damn medicine down their throats. Then again, it'd become damn impossible to get rid of the useless assholes wasting public resources for personal enjoyment.
Ok, enough of the vitriol. I dare say you get my drift though.
Much as I hate to admit it, you've got it right on the nose.
.crt file. Anyone coming to your site should have the option of installing your CA. Just make sure you use a strong passphrase on the private key and keep it well hidden - preferably somewhere not accessible from outside your firewall. While this isn't practical for commercial sites, it's fine for personal stuff - like running your own private webmail server or serving up private pics of the kids to family members.
I know this firsthand, and unfortunately, I have to lump in a distressingly large section of the software development community - even in the web sector! Some time ago, I was tasked with implementing client side SSL functionality (HTTPS, actually) in a web based product, as well as running the internal analysis on several SSL appliances. I spent so much time trying to explain certs to the rest of the company (both technical and non-technical personnel) that I wrote a document with a brief overview and several links to online sources. When that didn't stem the flow of questions, I gave up and started working from home until I could actually get some work done.
Still, if you want to run your own HTTPS site, just create your own CA, sign your web cert with that, and make the public key available on the website (nonsecure) as a
And yes, $100, or whatever it is these days, is a scam, but the point is they do the due diligence to verify your identity - or they should. The real problem with this is that the company signing the cert bears no responsibility if they issue a cert for a "near-miss" domain, like "cnnn.com" or "WallMart.com" - I don't know if these are real, but they demonstrate the point.
Umm, No.
If you go in dollars collected, then yes, I'd have to agree that Microsoft is way out in front. Dollar value on the other hand, is most certainly up for debate.
And of course the obligatory:
I for one, welcome our new open source overlords!!
Fox News is reporting the sold storage units are being repurchased by the military as they can find them
Why the hell are they repurchasing their own porperty?
Isn't that going to turn theft of military equipment and information into a whole economy?
Don't get me wrong, I don't think we should be there in the first place (IMHO, what little real benefit either the US or Iraq could ever hope to gain is nowhere near worth the lives of all those that have died), but if some bastard swipes my laptop, and I find out where it is, the last damn thing I'm going to do is buy it back. I don't care if the guy holding it is the one who stole it or not, he's not getting a nickle for something that's mine.
Well, now I know why I didn't find it. Seems that Apple has put the volume limit in for gen 5 iPods only. They did mention that it was only for a specific version, but I went dyslexic or something when I read it. They don't explicitly say the volume limit isn't there for certain models.
So, just to let everyone know, though I'm sure there won't be too many people reading this post now, if you have any ipod released prior to the nano or iPod video, you don't get a volume limit.
I wonder if this is a business decision or a technical one? Not that I wouldn't love one of those iPod Videos, but I did just buy the one I have, why would I sell it for half price and spend twice as much is I did for this one after only 7 or 8 months?
Cause I did.
Guess what? No Volume Limit.
Ok, I skimmed over the documentation first time round, and it was late, but now I'm looking at the Apple site directions, verifying my iPod software version (20G iPod w/Color Display, v1.2.1) and there's no bloody Volume Limit.
Now, I know I don't need it - unlike many people these days, I at least try to take responsibility for my own actions. I don't leave it loud enough to be uncomfortable - generally low enough that I can hear people talking around me. Still, I'm a nerd, and more importantly, a parent and uncle. My daughter, niece, and nephew all have shuffles, so I should at least know how to work it for them, and of course, I was just plain curious how the new bell worked.
So, did anyone else go looking for it? Did you find it?
Uh, yes. I do report them. I'm pretty foolish from time to time, but I'd hardly complain about something like this in such a public forum if I hadn't at least given them the chance to correct the issue.
Well, I did report them at first. If I haven't tossed or misplaced the old messages, I've probably still got a couple hundred floating around somewhere that I sent to abuse@joker.com along with every other relevant address I could find, regarding phishing scams and pornographic spam. I was very diligent about it for some time back when I initially set up my old domain.
It took all of 3 weeks for the joker domains to start blasting me with more than 100 messages every day - the address was probably gleaned off of one of the dozen or so technical mailing lists I joined that were archived online. It took about 2 months to reach 200/day. 85% or so were from joker domains (and not just from a couple, there were several dozen). Every last one was reported for about the first month, then as you might expect, I grew tired of it and quit. Particularly since I began noticing the same domains coming back and getting no response from Joker - other than the occasional canned response.
Eventually I found Spamassassin and started filtering them out, quite successfully. Still, when things hit a solid 250/day level for about a 2 month period, I picked up another domain and shut that one off for about 8 months - which helped, but after turning it back on I still got a good bit of garbage on that domain.
So, yes, I did follow the high road, and gave them a reasonable chance to fix the problem I was seeing. Apparently they didn't see it or didn't care. Since I did report them, they certainly can be expected to take action.
My perception of the problem (which is only my humble opinion) is that regardless of the AUP and the fact that it requires valid contact information for each domain - which is almost never supplied, regardless of the law, and regardless of the obvious violation of generally acceptable online practices, they (and other registrars, Joker is certainly not alone here) don't want to terminate a service they perceive as having been paid for. Even when I did get the canned response from Joker (and other registrars) promising an investigation, there was no followup with me (which might be understandable) and I continued to get trash from the domain in question.
There are also problems with privacy in some of these cases. I once reported a domain for spamming (I don't remember the registrar or the offending domain offhand, it was 3 or 4 years ago), and promptly received a direct message from the "admin" of the offending domain promising my online life would be constant hell from that point on for reporting him. So, with no measureable positive results from that approach, and at least one direct threat stemming from it, what would you do?
Was it ok for the organization I complained to to provide the offender with my contact information? Hell no!
After that I gave up and started a dozen or so honeypot addresses to seed my filters then set up some elaborate self implemented tools to make managing it at my site easier for everyone I gave an account to. That's not a solution though. It's just finding a way to keep it from eating 2 hours of my time out of every day, and possibly causing some real damage. It still eats my resources and takes my time (albiet very little anymore).
Most of the phishing scams and obscene spam (farm girl on farm animal type of stuff) I get in my inbox and most of the popups I see on the internet are joker registrations. Half the time, these are completely out of the blue - I don't get surprised when I get this stuff jumping random links from altavista, but when I'm cruising gamebanshee, even very mild porn is out of place. And the spam is just inexcuseable. Before anyone suggests the obvious - like a virus or malware for the popups, I get this on FreeBSD and MacOS X, not Windows.
Now, I know very well that not everyone registering at joker is carrying on such questionable or downright unscrupulous behavior (certainly less than 1% I hope), but I don't look up the registrar of every domain I visit, just those ones I have a complaint against - which is probably true for most anyone on the net.
The problem is that Joker usually doesn't appear concerned about the activities it's customers engage in (AUP notwithstanding), so it might be that someone out there saw one too many popup or phishing scam coming out of a Joker domain and got no satisfaction at the abuse desk.
Of course this wouldn't be justification for screwing up everyone else's domain, but it's not outside the realm of possibility.
Excellent observation.
If I hadn't already posted in this thread, I'd have to mod that one up as informative.
That's not to say that young children and infants are all little geniuses that are squandered by the limitations of their little bodies, but it's clear when you watch many infants observing the world around them that they have thoughts and questions. The absence of language is the biggest barrier to overcome. Giving them some real interaction with a mode of communication they can muddle through more productively than the old "point and grunt" method is certainly a serious leg up in their development.
My daughter was using sign language at 8 months, and by 9 months old, she was becoming a voracious inquisitor. If she saw something she didn't have a sign for, she asked (she made up her own signs for this interaction). If we didn't have a sign for it, she made up her own. By 10 months old, she knew around a dozen signs for colors alone, several dozen for toys and environmental objects and phenomena (hot, cold, pain, tree, rock, rainbow, rain, clouds, sun, moon, etc.), a dozen animals (at least!) and of course, the necessities (milk, juice, water, diaper change, food - cereal, fruit, etc) She also began making up signs on her own, sometimes without telling us until it was time to guess. That made things very interesting at times, but quite fun. By 14 months, she had well over 120 signs. And no, I don't think this is exceptional (though I do think my daughter is :), it's just a result of constant interaction without any pressure to advance faster than she wished.
For each sign she knew, she certainly recognized the spoken word associated and could demonstrate on verbal interaction without the object being present. She just focused more on the meaning than on teaching her mouth to make the sounds come out right.
So, I don't think the scientists are getting the whole picture when they restrict their research to actual verbal language. Studies have shown (both formal and informal, but don't ask me for the links - find them yourself if you're that interested) that children are intellectually capable of beginning their mastery of language much earlier than 10 months. The problem is that most people (scientists and non-scientists alike) forget that a physical inability to form words doesn't mean an intellectual inability to understand them.
Personally, and I have no evidence to support this, anecdotal or otherwise, I think babies begin linking sound to meaning as soon as they can visually focus on their parents, and hear their voices. Voice has been suggested as a major factor in bonding between mother and child, and I think there was a study done about this some time ago. There's probably a lot more physiological detail here that I'm certainly not qualified to expand on, but right or wrong, that's my opinion for the time being.
The only trick with sign language is in realizing that babies will use their mouths for getting food in and tasting things - which doesn't really require much oral dexterity, but they use their hands and fingers a lot more when pulling ears, noses, hair, etc. and when poking eyes and grabbing things to put into their mouths. They learn hand dexterity more quickly than they learn how to use their tongue - after all they can see what they're doing wrong with their hands and learn from it. Even so, they don't get signs as precise as an adult would, but they get them close enough for a parent - or anyone communicating with them regularly - to understand them perfectly. Some people have expressed concerns that using sign language will delay verbal language use, and this appears to be true in a small percentage of cases, but the only time I've ever seen it is when there were other issues with hearing that weren't caught early enough.
After our experience with sign language the first time around, we enthusiastically recommend it to anyone and everyone we come across with a small infant (at least those that stand still long enough to listen), and we plan to introduce it even earlier with our next child, coming later this year.
This was reported on NPR back in January, Hansen was on an interview shortly thereafter (early February, if I remember right), and has been reported online in great detail, including George Deutschs fall from grace after he was exposed as a fraud.
e ak-no-evil.html e aking-news-george-deutsch-did-not.html s a-science-censor-resigns.html u tschgate-in-media.html
For those who didn't know offhand, Deutsch is the person who was primarily (though not solely) responsible for the censorship attempts within Nasa. It turned out he never graduated from Texas A&M as his resume claimed, because he left early to work the Bush campaign - can you say Plum Pie?
Read the Scientific Activist blog entries here (in chronological order):
http://scientificactivist.blogspot.com/2006/01/sp
http://scientificactivist.blogspot.com/2006/02/br
http://scientificactivist.blogspot.com/2006/02/na
http://scientificactivist.blogspot.com/2006/02/de
The author of the Scientific Activist blog, Nick Anthis, is the person that initially uncovered Deutschs falsification of his resume and tipped off the NYT (and never got credit for the scoop, can you believe that?). This was back in early February.
Why not start focusing on cleaner fuels now (both for terrestrial and space travel) so those blokes stuck on the ground can keep their telescopes for more interesting pursuits than spying the fat old lady next block over?
And keep in mind, this article may not take into account that there will probably be about 2 billion more cars on the planet by then, so we could actually be looking at 2030, not 2050. (hint: invest in parking spaces in China NOW and don't say I didn't tell you so)
Just a thought.
Really, they're going to harvest nanotubes from clay? If they're so bloody ubiquitous in clay, why are labs spending millions to figure out how to manufacture them?
And where the hell are they gonna find a funnel small enought to get the copper in?
Seriously though, this article was obviously written by someone who has no tech sense whatsoever.
From the article: Now, since when does a carbon based nanotube qualify as a "sub-microscopic organism"? They better be careful, they'll have PETA after them for using living organisms in paint...
It's pretty amusing, the way the prediction from the National Science Foundation was worked in there, almost like a direct endorsement.
Can you say "Scam"?
Exactly. I myself run FreeBSD on a system I bought from Dell. It came with XP Home preinstalled, but I never even booted the OS before upgrading it. The disks sit unused in my CD case - some people can't throw anthing away. :|
This is a private server running HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP and IMAP services for just a few people, but it is a server on the internet, available at a static IP and domain. It also did not present any financial weight to the *nix ledger sheet - and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but IIRC, FreeBSD is a Unix distribution, unlike Linux, wich is merely a "Unix-like" OS.
The obvious result of this common practice is that it skews the numbers this set of statistics presents. Sure they deal with the MS Server distribution, but how many companies buy it, then don't use it because a *nix distro is better for their needs? Maybe not a lot, but almost certainly some do this.
I doubt it. It explicitly measures progress in dollar sales. Keep in mind that the Linux distros are essentially cheaper than the MS distro, and there are a lot of *nix servers out there that are not "sales" installations.
How many ISPs and hosting companies use free distros of Linux, FreeBSD, and/or OpenSolaris? None of that is considered in these numbers, which essentially makes them a little less significant when considering the most widely used or most reliable OS.
Now, a set of statistics that would be meaningful is the sheer number of servers out there running each OS. You can break this down to private and commercial for even more useful information. You can also break these down by bytes delivered and what kind of service they provide (FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, etc) and how much traffic they push. The traffic pushed is really more significant, because it will tell what operating systems are more trusted by companies that require obscenely high uptimes and high traffic volumes.
For instance, how many CDNs use MS? Mirror Image uses Solaris and in some applications, Red Hat Linux (I know, I used to write code for MII). I believe (but cannot confirm) that Akamai uses Linux, and I don't know what the other CDN players use. Now, take into account that between them, these networks probably handle a disproportionate share of internet traffic, and you pretty much start to wonder what the big deal is.
Then again, money makes the world go around, so in that sense, these numbers probably aren't totally irrelevant. I just don't think money is enough to rate a "Top OS". Maybe a "Top Revenue OS"? Who cares? That's just a way of saying it's expensive and the everyday user, geek, or small company can't be bothered with it.
I told you so.
Regardless of government censorship or record seizure, there will be an exchange of ideas with the internet present in China. And there will be improvements that would not be possible without the internet.
That doesn't mean this journalist is home free. He may get it a lot worse than the poor guy Yahoo! was recently forced to turn records over on.
Anyone think that will stop the next guy?
Still think Yahoo! should pull out of China?
This guy was lucky (or unlucky) enough to have access to the newspapers website. The average person isn't going to have such a place to express these objections unless they have access to a Yahoo! website or something of the sort.
I think this will give China a better chance of getting out from under communism the way they want to than any form of outright revolution. And it will cost a lot fewer lives.
sending me spam garbage promising I can "work at home" and make umpteen thousand dollars a month part time, when all I really want is a F@&#ing developer gig. If I wanted a stupid infomercial miracle job, I'd stay up 'til 3:00 AM looking for the stupid infomercials.
I mean really! Are they honestly that stupid?
You know who you are. <Cough>(TrueCareers!)<Cough>(CareerBuilder!)
Dice is the only site that never sent me spam and actually got me in touch with a recruiter that didn't schmooze me for an hour, promise me a dream job, then stop taking my calls. 2 months after getting my resume on Dice, I had a job, where a year on Monster, TrueCareers, HotJobs, CyberCoders (yah, every last one of their "company confidential" postings were actually copied from one or more other job sites), and BostonWorks yielded only spam and incompetent recruiters. I just hope all the incompetent recruiters don't read this and start tainting Dice.
Everyone else sent me spam. F@&#ing idiots. How bloody stupid can you be to try spamming an obvious "thought" worker with stupid (and obviously bogus) promises of mindless success using a clearly questionable method of delivery?
Wow. Lot's to digest there.
:) [...]
:) So it's good to take it with a grain of salt, but I believe it's even better to take one's own views with a grain of salt. A think a person who takes their own views with some degree if skepticism is not prone to willy nilly taking up the views of others as his/her own, because once a view is one's own, it'd be immediately questioned. So a person, who instead of questioning others questions oneself, is the most immune-to-bullshit person, in my opinion.
I'll just touch on a few points though.
Soulless? Well, depending on what we mean by that word, it may or may not be true.
I think you pretty much hit my actual meaning in that paragraph. In his book "Freedom Evolves", Daniel Dennet suggests an interesting difference between the religious concept of a soul (which he calls a "supernatural" soul) and a more secular concept of a soul - a "natural" soul. While his book is a highly technical philosophical discussion, most of which I don't think I got just right, I believe I understood a good deal of what I made it through, and I've been unable to honestly disagree with any of it. So, I do believe in the concept of a soul, and I do believe I have one, but it's no different in my mind from the "soul" of a bluebird, or squirrel, or cow. This doesn't make me guilty to be a meateater, either (seeing myself as part of nature, this is part of my natural existence), it does, however, makes me respect the origin of my food a little more. You might like that book, but be warned, it's not light reading.
Being open minded toward vastly different viewpoints is very brave and commendable in my opinion.
It may be brave, but it certainly is not easy. The pitfalls you mention are probably the more minor ones in my view. The biggest (and most feared one in my opinion) is that of hypocrisy. It's a very fine line to be sure. What makes it more difficult to do, is an intolerance for intolerance itself. I have the hardest time discussing any issue of faith with people who do nothing but quote the Bible as "proof".
In my opinion spiritual life consists not in asking oneself "What should I think?" but in asking oneself "Why do I think this way?" Any organization that tells you what, when and how you should think is a disgrace. Any organization that helps the person to explore their own true condition by means of experience and reason is commendable, in my opinion. Almost everyone I know is overtly or subtly pushing this or that view onto others. Heck, even I am not immune to that weakness and may be pushing some view onto you.
Now, this paragraph really hit the nail on the head for me. I had a long drawn out discussion with a cousin of mine on the importance of questioning one's own beliefs about a year and a half ago, and more recently I published a "thought out of the blue" that elaborated on it a little. I think you'll find we strongly agree on this point. Many of the other posts there demonstrate the difficulty with openmindedness as well, and probably highlight my failure in avoiding them.
And going back to China, I think you might be overcomplicating things a little. My point is that having some tool to promote (even surreptitiously, given the oppressive government) the exchange of ideas is the primary value to the Chinese people. Not just the flow of ideas from outside China, as would have been provided by "Voice of America" in the former USSR, but the flow of ideas within China. As I mentioned in one of my previous responses, it's about helping them realize the "dissidents" outnumber the comformists, or those that support the government, and helping them decide what they belive as members of the Chinese culture. They'll realize this much sooner with a restricted internet, than without any internet.
Without that service, a person m
to turn this into a kind of open source P2P(roxy) movement?
Think about it. This guy is spending a lot of resources to help people in China get the one thing that will help - free access to the exchange of information and ideas.
While Yahoo! cannot (openly) flout Chinese law, there's nothing illegal about Joe Geek installing an open source P2P application that allows him to share a small chunk of his bandwidth at home to provide access to content that the Chinese gov't has banned.
Personally, I'd sign right up. In fact, I might even volunteer a little time to work on development of the utility.
It would certainly add more "freedom value" to the presence of companies like Yahoo! and Google.
Of course, anyone openly doing so would have to pretty much avoid China for a good long time.
I hope you agree that if Yahoo is not carefully in how it conducts themselves in China, they may do more harm than good. What you say only makes sense if Yahoo's intent truly is to open up informational horizons and not just to make money.
Well, that all depends on how you look at it. From a more academic view of how to best make the most money, a market must have the largest customer base - among so many other things, but it's much easier to make more money with 1 billion customers than with 250 million. To that end, it is most certainly not in the best interest of Yahoo! shareholders (from a purely greed driven standpoint) to simply toss up their customers to the wolf everytime it comes sniffing around. From that point, I could argue that it's not really relevant what Yahoo! intends to accomplish. If they want to do good, then following the law only so far as they have to is the best way to do it (given that having internet access is better than not). If they simply want a disgustingly huge market base in the long term, then the same holds with respect to following the law. In other words, if they're smart greedy capitalists, well, that's too bad, but at least they're not stupid greedy capitalists, which would be very bad for the Chinese people. This might be better explained by the economic theory for which John Nash won a Nobel Prize (see""A Beautiful Mind" with Russell Crowe). Basically, it is in the best interest of a company to do not what is best for the company, but what is best for everyone.
When I say "physical life" I mean the person has unswerving faith in the view of immutable existence of substance, where all other properties are emergent from this substance in one way or another. A person who has uprooted their faith in the view of substance is no longer an ordinary person. This doesn't mean the person is escapist and can't face the "physical reality" so to speak. Quite the opposite in fact. They are the ones who CAN fully face it, fearlessly and then go beyond it by facing it in fearless way.
Pretty deep. I think I understand what you're saying here, but as person with faith in Science alone, I suspect I may be missing something. I'll certainly keep this in the back of my mind though.
For the record, I am not associated with any religions or movements or cults or whatnot. In this I am more or less a loner.
I knew we had something in common. I'm pretty much a soulless athiest in search of world peace and harmony myself, so I tend to look at these issues with more of an open mind with respect to morality and right and wrong. Unfortunately I still have to watch myself when it comes to respecting religion, particularly the one I escaped from. Of course, that doesn't preclude any personal sense of right and wrong, but it helps (at least I think it does) in understanding other viewpoints, and in cases like Yahoo! in China, trying to see some good that doesn't require the black-and-white view of the world that is usually typical with many religions.
I have to admit, this is by far the most interesting discussion I've had on any sociopolitical issue in a very long time. You have very interesting (and valid) viewpoints. To a point, I do agree with you.
I do think, however, that broadening out the responsibility could do more harm than good in this case. I'm sure Yahoo! isn't volunteering dissidents , and I'm sure they are only giving access to information explicitly requested. They'd lose a big portion of their customer base in China and elsewhere otherwise. This is the only way they can stay in China. If they refuse these "requests" from the government, they get chucked out of the country. If this were to happen, it would be much more difficult for people to learn that they're not the only ones that disagree with the government.
I vaguely remember an anecdote about a discussion held in the senate of Ancient Rome. It goes to the point of slaves, and knowing who is or is not a slave. Apparently one senator recommended that all slaves be forced to wear a mark of their status so that they could be easily identified at a glance. This was quickly rejected when another senator suggested what would happen should the slaves in Rome discover how drastically they outnumbered the free citizens of Rome. It would be open rebellion and the slaves would destroy Rome in a day.
Keeping Yahoo! in China, even under the oppressive requirements imposed by the government gives the people in China that want something better, a much better chance to share their ideas, and more importantly, learn exactly how much they outnumber their oppressors. Tiannenmen (sp?) square was a tragedy that could have been avoided if those people had been able to learn more beforehand. It's not going to be easy with the restrictions in place, but they will manage it if they have access.
About 9 years ago, I worked with a young man who was in the square when the massacre happened. He saw the footage that made it out of the country, and made it very clear that that only represented the tip of the iceberg. He himself was "detained" by the government for about 18 months, and when he was released, he took his first chance to get out of the country. After several years, he was still terrified of any aggressive authority figure, firearms (of any kind) and always seemed nervous in closed spaces. We found this last detail out when we went exploring in some local caves. After an aborted initial trip, he declined other invitations.
Though he never would discuss exactly what happened to him, I have a very small inkling of what dissidents might go through in China. I still think they would rather take the chance than live with another 30 or 40 years of useless boycotting from outside China without that opportunity.
And as will likely be proven in the Middle East, if a people don't want to be free, nothing else in the world can make them free. If the Iraqi people decide fending for themselves is just too hard, you'll see another dictator running the place within a decade. And the people won't lift a finger to stop it.
I agree that corporations should have a moral rudder of sorts, but the real bitch about morality is that it's so bloody different from person to person and country to country.
I don't know if "Voice of America" was intentionally broadcast into the USSR, but even if it was, that was an act of war. Matter of fact, IIRC, the US was at war (sorta) with the USSR through the 60's and 70's. Both governments supported obscenely bloated espionage programs to keep an eye on what was going on in the other country. I'm sure there are similar programs supported between the US and China, but I seriously doubt they are anything to compare with those used between the US and the USSR.
Personally, I'd love it if Yahoo! had a leg to stand on in refusing the Chinese government. They've had to make a choice. If that choice had no benefit other than money, I'd be pretty angry at Yahoo!. As it is, I think the focus should remain on the real villain, which is the Chinese government.
And the comparison between the shortwave radio broadcasts of "Voice of America" to the internet is not really accurate. While I'm sure the radio broadcasts were beneficial in spreading American Ideals, it didn't help the Soviet peoples spread their own ideas. I suspect that might have been much more valuable. Personally, I think a viral US government is a very bad thing for the world. It would be much better to promote the freedom of the exchange of ideas than simply promote the American Ideal. The American Ideal just isn't right for everyone.
Hell, it's not even right for some Americans. Else there wouldn't be Freaks like Fred Phelps running around screaming that "God Hates Fags".
Even the woefully restricted internet access available in China now is going to promote an exchange of ideas within China, regardless of what the government does. That will be a positive impact that wouldn't be available without Yahoo!.
Once again, I agree that the arrest of this one person is a bad thing. I'm just not sure it should be blamed on Yahoo!. They have no choice but to follow the law (right or wrong) in China if they wish to continue bringing internet access to the Chinese people. Of course it would be a huge loss to pull out, they'd lose all the infrastructure they've built, all the computer systems they have there, and that's certainly a financially motivated decision, but then the government would get access to all those records anyway. So could Yahoo! really have prevented it? I doubt it.
As far as pulling some heroics to delete the data before the government came for it, it's not reasonable to expect a bunch of computer geeks to go commando against a trained military. That information would have been taken one way or another.
It can be ignored. There are consequences for all actions, be it ignoring or be it acquiescing. I am going to promote conscious and deliberate moral choice over the de-facto acquiescing to "ambient-like" laws. In other words, I strongly advise people to get rid of the mindset that "laws are just there." Nothing is just there.
Well, you're at least part right. It can be ignored if the consequences are an option. In this case, the consequences for refusing to acquiesce is being tossed out of China. The Government then comes up with their own state owned service, and control it with an iron hand, or worse, they just plain outlaw internet access altogether, maybe even privately owned computers - let's take one of the two largest countries in the world back to Soviet Russia days.
And who ever said "laws are just there"? I never did. I don't believe they are just.
That's the better reason for "obeying" the law, and staying in China. And because of conditions in China, I'm sure the profit margin is pretty thin, if it's even there. Of course losing a little money now isn't likely to be withstood simply for huminatarian reasons. It'll pay off later - hopefully, if conditions for the people in China approve. That payoff is probably the real reason they're there "obeying" the law, but so long as things do improve, even slowly and with unfortunate victims, it's better to have Yahoo! there. They may or may not be making a moral choice, but who cares. I think in the long run it's better than leaving the Chinese people without the benefit of internet service, even one hindered by an oppressive government.
And before anyone suggests it, no, I am not nor have I ever been a stockholder in Yahoo! or Google, nor have I ever been affiliated with either in any professional capacity.
No, this isn't the way corporations work, and it's not the way law works. If France has a law requiring unfettered access to certain records in the event of a terrorist investigation, but the US has laws protecting those records without more concrete evidence - and then only provides limited access, whose laws take precedence if the records are generated in France? Not US law.
Yahoo! operates in France under the same restrictions - and freedoms, as any other corporation in France. Otherwise, how could they be competitive? And corporations aren't "using" legal systems other than to understand the rights they have and responsibilities they must meet in order to be allowed to operate in each country.
If an American citizen flies to Amsterdam and smokes a bit of hash in a coffee shop, can they be prosecuted when they return to the US? Nope. They didn't break the law. US law only applies on US soil. The US can't make the law anywhere else - at least not without going to war.