I know. I wasn't accusing you of the faulty logic! I was just using your succinct and well-framed summary as a convenient place to argue my point. I apologize for the unintended implication that you were using faulty logic!
Bennett explains that this is important because (pay attention now) the same judge that wasn't able to determine what spam looks like also sits more vital cases like child custody, property damage, and rape. That is, however, a rather weak conclusion:
1.This was a small-claims judge in a small-claims court. I'm not saying that small-claims judges are less capable than other judges, but clearly small-claims court isn't held to the same rigor as courts charged with child custody or rape. Quite simply, the purpose of small-claims is to get a judgment quickly (and cheaply), and for the judge to apply a bit of "common sense" to small-scale disputes. To generalize from an "injustice" in small-claims to saying that the entire court system should be questioned is weak logic.
2. We don't know enough about the judge's ruling to say whether this was really a mistake or not. We've only heard one side of the story. The judge will have considered evidence and statements from both parties. For all we know the defendant provided some reasonable explanation (e.g. provided sufficient evidence that this was a one-time mistake). It's quite possibly that this was a correct ruling.
3. Also worth noting is that the judge isn't really saying "this isn't spam" but rather saying "there is insufficient evidence that this is spam." So the judge's ruling shouldn't be construed as an endorsement of what the defendant did--it could merely be that from a single email alone (and without, e.g. proof that the same email was sent to other people) the judge cannot reasonably come to that conclusion.
So, while this makes for an interesting case to test what types of spam can be fought in small-claims court, I believe generalizing beyond that is not valid. I'm not saying that the court system is without faults--but this present evidence is weak indeed.
A product is worth exactly what it's purchaser will pay for it. True enough. But the free market ideal of "every product ends up costing exactly what it is worth" is based in some ways on informed producers and consumers. In reality information is imperfect, so a consumer may purchase something that has a perceived utility, when in reality the product does not have that utility.
You may say: "So what, it's the buyer's fault for being stupid." However there is a point where it goes from "stupid buyer" to "fraudulent seller." If you bought a DVD player, brought it home, and in the box found a brick instead of a piece of electronics, you would be (rightly) pissed. It's fraud. The brick does not have the same value (to you or anyone else) as the money you just handed over. Similarly (if more subtly) when a seller tells you he is selling you "an ionizing wristband" that "improves wellness" he is flat-out lying. That is fraud. The wristband will not improve the person's life to the extent they were led to believe.
So, while I agree that ultimately "something is worth exactly what people are willing to pay for it", we must be watchful for scams where what is delivered is not what is advertised. (Selling "metal wristband" for $600 is okay, selling "ionizing wristband that improves wellness" for $600 is fraud.)
Dowsing I think is in sore need of a proper, large study I disagree. By that logic, everything would be in need of a proper, large study... otherwise one could argue "it could be true." The simple fact is that proper, large studies are only required when there is at least a little bit of evidence that something is true. So for instance when small-scale studies provide some evidence (but maybe the error bars need to be smaller for it to be convincing), or when various small-scale studies contradict each other, then a larger study may be appropriate.
And, to be clear, it's not like people have not studied these dowsing claims. People like James Randi have organized a one million dollar prize for anyone who can prove that they can perform dowsing (or other "paranormal" things). Many have tried, and yet the prize has still not been claimed. So, at a minimum, we can say that self-professed dowsing experts cannot perform their trick on demand (or perhaps none of them want fame and/or money?). Considering how many people claim that dowsing is real, and that none of them have offered up evidence, that is quite telling.
The studies performed by Randi (and others) were not exceedingly large, but they used proper scientific techniques (multiple random blind trials, calculating error bars, etc.), and none of them have turned up a shred of evidence for dowsing being real. To conduct a larger study would be a waste of money, since at present we have no evidence of it working at all. (You may as well conduct a large-scale study about how to extract useful energy from the temperature variations produced by ghosts.) A larger study wouldn't even silence "true believers" of these hoaxes, since these people (for the most part) totally disregard the scientific method.
as a result of course, consumers won. Really? Winning a battle doesn't mean you get everything you want... but it does mean you've prevented your enemy from getting the thing they wanted from you.
In the "war on piracy" their intention was to prevent people from sharing music (i.e.: to at least maintain their previous business model). However, the consumers won that war: at present people routinely fileshare. Most people I know have an iPod (or equivalent) and all of them have it filled with music, where they only paid for 0-20% of those tracks. The average consumer is file-sharing. The industry couldn't stop it. The consumers won that battle, and the industry lost.
As they say, however, the battle may be won but the war is far from over. The grander issue here is whether copyright law itself is valid in its present form... and whether changing it means more protections/enforcement (for the established industry), or more freedoms/rights (for the citizens).
I'm still boycotting new music purchases. As well you should. There are so many better sources for music (independent labels, creative commons music, etc.) that there is no excuse for purchasing any music from companies involved in the unethical legal and lobbying tactics of the established cartel.
That's when the real victory will come: when these currently "fringe" sources of music become the norm, and the established cartel withers away (or reinvents itself to survive).
I think the reason they haven't made as much money recently has little to do with piracy and everything to do with the changing perception of value. Quite right. Like it or not, most music gets "consumed" in a very off-hand kind of way. For instance, people want some "tunes" for driving, working out, or while they are doing something else. They may download a song, and never listen to it (or listen to it once and decide they don't like it). As a result, the value one can place on such incidental usage is necessarily low.
Some people will indeed obtain music in order to really enjoy it, and listen to every nuance. But they are the minority (in a marketing sense anyway), and in any case they are the ones most likely to pay in various ways (CDs, merchandise, going to shows, donating money, etc.), so they are certainly not the "problem" when it comes to this "decreasing apparent value of music."
As you said, video games are a good comparison. For $30-40, you can get a Nintendo DS game that will provide you with hours and hours of focused entertainment. As such, the $/hour cost of that entertainment is low (and most people pay it without worry). On the other hand, buying an album for ~$20, when you may only listen to the tracks a few times (and listen to them "incidentally" at that) becomes ridiculous (it may end up being on the order of $/minute of entertainment).
Whether it's "right" or "wrong" is irrelevant. The fact is that people will subconsciously make these value assessments, and will not feel bad about circumventing legitimate channels if those are too expensive.
The solution, of course, is brutally simple... and totally unappealing to the music industry. If you sold music at very low cost (pennies per track, or a monthly fee that provided unlimited download of a comprehensive catalog), then people would pay for it without a second thought. But this is a scary proposition because it is tantamount to admitting that what you are selling is not some exceedingly rare and valuable product, but rather a commodity service. The industry fears that this will mean lower profits, though that is debatable.
In the meantime, people are naturally coming up with their own solutions: either ignoring copyright law or seeking legitimate channels where the pricing is more reasonable (e.g. listening to Creative Commons music from places like Jamendo and donating to "worthy" bands).
They're in the business of national security. That's generally at odds with personal security and liberty. Those who would trust such a product from them are suckers. The problem is that this flaw is a much bigger threat to national security than to personal security. These "official recommendations" from the NSA are used to form official policies and guidelines in just about every branch of government (FBI, CIA, DOD, etc.).
So, if the NSA was indeed intentionally creating a backdoor, then they were doing a disservice to the "national security" they are supposedly protecting. By allowing (encouraging, in fact) top-secret government data to be encrypted in this way, they would be making the nation's secrets quite vulnerable. By comparison, private citizens and corporations can use whatever encryption they like, regardless of NSA recommendations.
I suppose one could argue that the NSA thought that no one would figure it out, so that they (and they alone) would be able to break that encryption for all time (so that they can spy on other branches of the government?). I think a simpler explanation is that NSA just made a mistake in endorsing that algorithm, and never intended to threaten national security. Of course it will be interesting to see what position they take now that a flaw has been publicly identified.
I think you might be creating a false dichotomy. We all understand that Slashdot has to attract eyeballs, and thus has to keep a constant flow of interesting/catchy stories on the front page. However what is at issue is the presentation of those stories.
In particular, the GP wasn't saying that Slashdot should be a news site, or even saying that dupes are an egregious sin. Instead, he was providing possible ways for making such stories useful instead of aggravating. It is indeed aggravating to read something only to discover that it's more-or-less the same thing you've already read, but much less so if you're forewarned about how this fits in with previous stories. Slashdot has made some progress in this department (with the "Related Stories" links), but more work needs to be done. A "dupe" isn't necessarily bad if it is framed properly (e.g. "here's an update on X" or "it's been awhile since we've heard about X" or "for those of you who missed the last story on X, here's another one"). I'm pretty sure that people will still load Slashdot, still join the discussion, and so forth. What we are asking for is not that every article be totally fresh and original, but that summaries are accurate and useful, which means pointing out how the current news/article differs from previous news/articles on the same subject (if it's a dupe, just say so!).
For those of us who like Slashdot and read many of the stories, unlabeled dupes are annoying... and we want to help fix the situation. An upgrade to the Slashdot admin interface (which tries to auto-detect dupes or related links) is one solution. Another one, which would exploit the collective memory (and detail-oriented nature) of Slashdot readership would be to allow people to add "related links" to articles (preferably at the firehose stage). If enough people add the same link (maybe weighted by karma), it is probably not linkspam and can be promoted automatically to be displayed. This would give editors information on related stories, and allow them to better judge the novelty of a submission.
I agree that the media fixation with "a X competitor" or "a X killer" is annoying and silly. However, it's important to realize where this "must compete" attitude comes from: a (sometimes blinding) desire to make money. With respect to the stock market, it is often assumed that economic activity always falls into a pre-defined sector, and that since there are finite resources (in terms of customer spending power) within that sector, a company can only make money at the expense of another. Hence, for a new service to succeed, it must necessarily be drawing users away from some other service.
It doesn't take much thinking to see that this generalized concept is often false. In fact, many of the truly successful companies got to where they are by creating a new market, not beating out others in an established market. The Internet has seen many of these success stories (Google, eBay, etc.). In fact it can be a winning strategy (though arguably more difficult) to carve out a new niche of customers, rather than fighting over established markets (e.g. what Nintendo is doing with the Wii).
Maybe a company releases a product/service just to make money, not to compete or kill something else. Ideally, yes. In fact, many companies would deliver a far better user experience (and probably make more money) if they focused on ways to establish a significant user base that was happy with the product, rather than always desperately trying to increase marketshare.
But, this obsession with "winning the competition" runs deep. For instance, many people won't consider Mac or Linux "a success" until it has significant marketshare--even though the current users of those platforms are very happy with their user experience. And, arguably, one of the reasons that the customer experience can be so good in these smaller markets is because the focus has to be placed on quality instead of quantity.
This is mostly speculation on my part... but: For awhile the RIAA was sending out random letters to people, offering settlements. Probably many people did settle, for undisclosed sums in cases that were never made public.
But the RIAA decided to step it up a notch, and create a publicity campaign along the lines of "steal our stuff and you'll get caught" by suing tons of people simultaneously. However this seems to be backfiring: the publicity is making people realize that this is a widespread problem, and is making the weak points in the RIAA's accusations publicly known. So, people are more willing to fight when they: (1) realize there are many other people in the same situation as them, and (2) exchange information on "how to win."
Now this situation is far from over, and it may indeed turn out that many of these accused people will go to trial. Some of them may even lose, and have to pay egregious sums (e.g. $200,000 for sharing ~20 tracks). However the publicity with respect to these infringement cases is making it much easier for people to organize and fight. It is also making the RIAA (and associated labels/business sector) look evil and incompetent.
So, in a twisted sort of way, the publicity blitz to stop filesharing may actually make people more brazen.
This is the problem inherent in the wiki-mindset This isn't really a problem particular to the wiki model of information distribution. A leak, inherently, cannot be confirmed or independently verified since (by definition) it is something that people are trying to keep secret.
The same problem occurs with any "leaked documents" or "anonymous whistle-blowers" or anonymous "sources" in general. We cannot judge the reputation of the person who is doing the leaking, so we can only use the information itself as a guide. In particular, we can see whether the leaked information matches with what we see externally. We can also use the reaction of the affected organizations as a partial guide.
Ultimately, with leaks we must use our own judgment, with full knowledge that many "leaks" are probably fabricated or altered in some way. At a minimum, potentially leaked information gives people clues for what they should be further investigating.
I'm sure that this has probably shown up in other OLPC arguments, but is this project really what the Third World needs? That is an oft-cited criticism, and not without merit. However, no one is arguing that OLPC will bring about instantaneous change on its own. Certainly this ambitious project is meant to work in concert with other efforts to help these nations.
First, it should be noted that OLPC is targeting developing nations where there is some momentum to improve things, but where access to technological resources and information are limiting growth. They are not focusing on the "desperately poor" countries where starvation is the overriding concern (take a look at the participating countries). Second, the XO laptops are meant to work side-by-side with other forms of relief, aid, education, and infrastructure improvement.
Saying "why bother with OLPC when people are starving?" is like saying "why bother sponsoring a local child to go to a swimming competition when people are starving?" We can simultaneously be philanthropic in different ways to different groups. Moreover, focusing only on the "most dire" problems (and ignoring everything else) is not a good way to help the world as a whole develop into a safer, more equitable place. So, I view OLPC as a part of the overall puzzle: a positive step that can be implemented in some countries, and which will help stimulate those countries to become more prosperous and independent.
I wonder why the OLPC folks think everyone in America can afford this PC. OLPC is a non-profit who will sell large shipments of XO laptops to any educational customer requesting them. Nothing stops the US from putting in an order for a bunch of laptops for underprivileged children. In fact, apparently Massachusetts and Maine are already involved.
Yes, OLPC is focusing their efforts on third-world countries, but also the US education system is mostly ignoring OLPC. The "why" is fairly simple: it's not because US children do not deserve a good education, and not because they wouldn't benefit from computer access. But, the fact is that the US is structured such that OLPC may not be the "best fit." For instance many libraries in the US have computers in them, and many schools do also. It would appear that in the US the effort is being put into these kinds of educational resources. Whether or not that is the best way to spend US education dollars is of course up for debate.
But it's not really fair to imply that OLPC is ignoring US education. As I said, educational institutes in the US are free to make a case for funding such projects. OLPC will gladly ship the units.
For those interested, here's a link to the actual order page.
The two laptops will cost $399.00 USD, and shipping is $24.95 USD (for a total of $423.95 USD). Open to residents of US and Canada only. Paypal is the default payment option (credit cards are also accepted). Of that, $200 is considered a tax-deductible donation. Your contribution also gets you 1 year of free Wi-Fi access at T-Mobile hotspots.
The website says that they will try to deliver the laptop before the holidays, but that initial supplies are limited (TFA says 40,000 units in this first month, with 20,000 ready before Christmas), so if you're keen to get one of these things, you should order sooner rather than later.
I'm certainly curious to see how many orders get put in. If a large number of geeks buy these things as hacking toys, then they could very well become the best platform for a variety of tasks. For example, maybe this will finally be a viable e-book reader (portable, rugged, long battery life, display that can be used in ambient light, etc.). Should be interesting.
I know I'm being paranoid, but did anybody else think that this is a way for the gummint to get a look at the various methods people are using to secure their data? I think you are being a bit paranoid! NIST is proposing an open competition to develop a new open standard for hashing. Anyone who wants to participate can do so. Anyone who wants to retain their "secret hashing method" can continue to keep it secret. It's not like the government is demanding anything. This is just a research agency promoting open research.
Not to mention that I sincerely doubt that anyone is currently using some super-secret ultra-elite hashing algorithm that no one else knows about. This field of mathematics and security is quite mature and very much open to scrutiny currently. The current solutions are fully documented. I think the point here is that further progress isn't going to be made by lone researchers hiding their results: the only way forward is via more open collaboration.
What better way to get the methods than to have a 'competition', something that will stroke the egos of crackers? If a cracker wants to sell his secrets at the cost of an ego-stroke, that's his choice. Nothing nefarious here. Again, NIST is not going to take these results and use them for evil ends (or even for commercial gain): they are hoping to create an open, public standard that everyone will benefit from (and which international experts in mathematics, cryptography, and computer security will analyze in detail). That's what NIST does.
Sorry, but I think your paranoia is unfounded in this case!
(Disclosure: I work with NIST, but have nothing to do with this project. Note that my opinions are my own and should not be construed as official statements from NIST.)
To give a more extreme example, if Facebook decided to use people's profile pictures, and Photoshop their heads on the bodies of naked people... would that be okay? Probably not. No amount of EULA mumb-jumbo or implied consent would make that legally permissible, both because of the particular laws that apply to things like modeling (especially adult modeling) and because any court would agree that this exceeded a "reasonable expectation" of the rights the user was granting to Facebook.
Now, in the case of this ad situation, I'll admit it's a bit less clear, but similar logic applies. There are special laws when it comes to endorsement, advertising, and commercial use of a person's likeness. Moreover, I think most courts would agree that this exceeds the "reasonable expectation" of what rights the user was granting when they signed onto Facebook.
I don't think this is an idea Facebook should pursue (unless it is explicitly opt-in), because doing it without permission opens the door to a class-action lawsuit. No amount of legalese in a click-through agreement can over-ride the common sense of a judge who can plainly see that people didn't intend for this to happen when they signed up for the service.
I don't think you can neatly separate out "good" and "bad" behaviors like this. Well, one metric could at least be that ISPs don't violate the contracts they have with customers. I.e.: they are not committing fraud. Fraud is "bad." Your hypotheticals are not nearly as gray as you make them out to be.
What if one customer "requests" that another customer's internet performance be hindered? Is that OK or not? Not OK. Why should one customer be able to influence another customer's service?
Suppose the request comes about by the first customer hogging more than his share of bandwidth? Is that OK or not? "More than his share"? The available bandwidth is stipulated in the contract you sign for the service. The ISP has to honor that contract and deliver that bandwidth. The customer is allowed to use the bandwidth they paid for (yes, even saturate it). For the ISP to do otherwise is fraud. If the ISP enters multiple contracts and it cannot fulfill them all (over-subscribes) that is fraud on the part of the ISP.
Suppose an ISP provides special low latency connections optimized for VOIP? Is that OK or not? Sure, that's OK, as long as it doesn't degrade the performance of other customers.
Suppose they slow down large downloads? Is that OK or not? No, that's not OK. (Unless the contract the customer signed explicitly said that this would happen.)
When the world is covered with a grid of network nodes every meter, when we are online 100% of the time everywhere we go, we are going to need a network infrastructure which is flexible and smart. This vision of ubiquitous connectivity isn't going to happen if we allow the telecoms to make the rules: they will charge so much for every little service that it will be far too expensive to maintain the connectivity you mention. As for "infrastructure which is flexible and smart"--I believe that's part of what network neutrality is about. One of the issues with allowing ISPs to filter content based on type (and especially based on origin/destination) is that such a system inherently becomes inflexible. Moreover it isn't smart, because people will fight against the traffic shaping rules if they don't conform to the way people want to use the net (e.g. people will start encrypting everything or spoofing origin IP or hiding one kind of traffic inside another).
An "arms race" between the infrastructure and the users is neither flexible nor efficient. It is wasteful and frustrating. The genius of the Internet was that it was a simple system that would blindly pass packets to their destination. It was this generality and equality that allowed a whole slew of new applications to evolve. The point is that we can't imagine, today, what the next "killer app" of the net is going to be... but traffic shaping inherently says "these are the services that are important"--which means anything currently unimagined will remain unimplemented forever.
it really means government regulation I agree that the government should keep its regulating to a minimum. The free market can often find optimal solutions to a variety of problems. However, there are two important things to keep in mind with regard to communication infrastructure: (1) It is already regulated; (2) It involves numerous layers of monopoly, hence it will never be a pure free market.
One of the important things to remember is that communication infrastructure requires using a limited public resource (e.g. burying cables on public property or even easements on private property, or using the limited bandwidth of wireless spectra...). So no matter what, some kind of regulation is required. Moreover, some kind of government monopoly grant will be required (it is ludicrous to have hundreds of companies lay independent cable infrastructures, or compete for bands by building bigger and bigger transmitters).
So, given that government involvement (and moreover, the creation of various forms of monopoly) is inevitable, the question cannot be "do we want the government involved?" but rather "what do we want government involvement to be?"
The incumbent communication companies are, basically, abusing the monopoly status that was granted to them. That monopoly status was granted with an implied (and only occasionally codified) ethos: namely that this would create widespread access to the resource for the citizenry. Things like prioritizing traffic and double-charging people for access are explicitly contrary to the intention with which the monopolies were granted. Hence, it is totally reasonable to ask that government amend the agreement with these companies, so that they actually deliver the service they were supposed to deliver.
Put otherwise: why should government keep giving monopolies to companies that are not acting in ways that benefit the citizens?
Great idea, now try to do the math on all of the floating bodies and the effect of the gravity from neighboring quasars and other space phenomena. For the mentioned application (communicating inside the solar system to the Lagrange points, for instance), gravitational effects will not be a big deal. The light deflection that the Earth or the moon will cause are negligible. The real challenge in targeting, I would imagine, will be accounting for relative motion between the two ends of the link.
Maybe a single shot of data, but maintaining that connection would be very difficult IMHO. I expect just the opposite to be true. Once a link has been established, I imagine maintaining it wouldn't be that hard. Why? Probably the optics on both ends will measure the positioning of the incoming laser on their detector. They can then send information to each other about alignment (e.g. "you're drifting to the left...") so that they can actively compensate (the time lag between them will be ~5 seconds, or ~10 seconds roundtrip).
Instead, I imagine the initial linkup might be the limiting step. The system might require an initially higher-power signal (that is broad so that targeting tolerances are lower) to initialize the link, then active feedback could allow the two ends to narrow the beams for lower-energy high-speed data transfer. Maybe the initial phase will use conventional radio signals (or radar) to establish the locations (and relative movement) of the two endpoints of the link. With that information, the two ends can then aim the laser fairly accurately.
I could see it working but the receiver would have to be huge. It's hard enough to hit someone with a gun at a mile using a laser sight (windage which would be comparable to space effect on the laser light). Luckily there is no wind in space, and the motion of objects is measurable and fairly predictable. Obviously over those distances any amount of error or jitter translates to a huge positioning error, but laser-steering systems can also be made quite accurate (not to mention that a laser doesn't have to be perfectly collimated, you can easily tune the aperture so that the beam is 500 m wide at the target... as long as the laser is strong enough, the receiver will still easily be able to measure the signal).
And I suppose you wired your house yourself, then? You would never use an ethernet card without first fully understanding all its circuitry? And you programmed all your apps yourself, in assembly?
There's nothing wrong with using high-level programming languages, software libraries, and pre-built hardware. Using these pre-built components to build a useful device is no different than combining servers, routers, and wiring to build a network. You do *not* have to be intimately familiar with the low-level details of all the hardware in order to combine it together in a useful way.
These hardware modules looks like they could be very fun and very useful. A great way for a DIY person to put together a fun toy, or an inexpensive solution to a problem, etc. It could also be quite useful for people who want to prototype new device ideas without commissioning expensive custom components.
No one is arguing that the existence of these modular devices will replace the need for dedicated hardware for many applications (and the associated specialized engineers who design that hardware). The idea instead would be to lower the barrier to creating novel devices, so that hobbyists and non-specialists can try out new ideas that would have been prohibitively expensive otherwise.
I know many people bemoan this "Cult of the Amateur" (e.g. Wikipedia, blogs, citizen journalism, high-level programming languages, etc.); but to me the whole "point" of technology in general (and computers in particular) is to reduce the barriers, so that "ordinary people" can do things that previously only a "selected few" were allowed to do. I find that this push towards community-driven work and lower barriers to technological progress and education are very much good things.
The presented rationale for not banning smoking for youngsters misses, I think, the real reasoning for having the ban. The reasoning goes something like:
1. Smoking is bad, and should be discouraged as much as possible. 2. All people should have the freedom to do what they like to themselves. However, an exception to this rule can be made when it comes to minors, who may make poor choices. The freedom of a minor can be abridged if it can be shown that this is "for their own safety". In any case, adults (defined as 18+ in most jurisdictions) shall have full freedom to do what they want to their own possessions and bodies. 3. Smoking is sufficiently "bad" that it warrants the restricting of a minor's freedom.
In this argument, the difference between the minor and the adult is not the harm it causes them, but the assessment about personal responsibility. Our society views the safety of minors as being a communal responsibility. Until the minor is old enough to reason for themselves (arbitrarily set at age 18), then their parents and/or society will make certain choices on their behalf. If they still select the harmful behavior as an adult, that's their choice. But it would be immoral for society to allow those without full cognitive ability to make harmful decisions. (Same rationale applies to adults who have impaired cognitive abilities; in which case someone is designated to make responsible choices on their behalf.)
We "allow" adults to smoke not because the consensus is that it isn't "bad" but rather because personal freedom and self-determination are viewed as being more important than saving someone from themselves.
Yes, I serve on an institutional IRB, and no, this would never pass in my institution. Out of curiosity, why wouldn't it pass?
It doesn't seem too different from psych experiments where a researcher stands in a public place and does something or asks a certain question. (E.g. a famous one was to have an attractive female and male person ask passerbys on a college campus if they wanted to go have casual sex right now.) I was under the impression that experiments in public places didn't require the explicit consent of each unwitting participant (provided, of course, that the experiment involves only normal everyday interaction, like asking questions, and does not induce undue stress on participants, etc.).
I fully agree that any experiment involving humans (even over the Internet) should require internal review and approval. But why would this experiment not pass? It doesn't seem like the burden imposed on the unwitting participants is very large, considering that they are voluntarily participating in an interactive "public space" online and have no expectation of privacy or even peace (the bot wasn't doing anything that a human player couldn't or wouldn't).
Of course another aspect of passing review is that the data recovered should be sufficiently robust, meaningful, and significant that it warrants intruding on the lives of subjects. Perhaps it is this criteria that you feel it fails?
Why bother having a bot for so small a sample? Well, it may be that for research purposes they want the behavior of the approaching avatar to be as consistent as possible. Therefore they use a bot to automate the approach so as to avoid the experimenter biasing the results somehow.
That having been said, I totally agree with your post: 28 events is a ridiculously small sample size to try and measure the behavior of people in virtual worlds. Considering they went to the bother of writing a bot, one would hope they will leave it running for awhile longer to accumulate more data.
Indeed, and the differentiation between users and developers is critical in this case. Basically, most users don't care about APIs and open standards and such (until, of course, the day they try to migrate all their perfectly tagged photos from one site to another... and discover they can't).
The developers are the ones who might care about APIs and open standards. Now, I'll admit that some casual developers of Facebook widgets don't care too much about portability and open standards. But, I would guess that many (most?) developers of social widgets do care about such things. As a developer, why would you want your work to be coupled to a single site, which is not under your control? Most programmers would prefer to have the ability to move their code from place to place, and for their widgets/applications to be accessible to as many people as possible (otherwise, why are they releasing it in the first place?).
So whereas users might not care about these things, I think many programmers/developers are going to be more interested in working on OpenSocial tools and widgets, rather than contributing to a walled garden that they have no control over. (E.g. Facebook can come up with a tightly-coupled widget that completely replaces your pet project.)
If the developers care, they could certainly shift the balance of power towards OpenSocial. Users may not care about APIs and open standards, but they certainly do care about awesome widgets, the ability to link with a large and growing social network, and (perhaps most importantly) the ability to migrate their current profile into this new network. If everyone except Facebook (for instance) is part of this OpenSocial network, then Facebook users will indeed be annoyed that they cannot interact with the cool toys everyone else is playing with.
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I know. I wasn't accusing you of the faulty logic! I was just using your succinct and well-framed summary as a convenient place to argue my point. I apologize for the unintended implication that you were using faulty logic!
1.This was a small-claims judge in a small-claims court. I'm not saying that small-claims judges are less capable than other judges, but clearly small-claims court isn't held to the same rigor as courts charged with child custody or rape. Quite simply, the purpose of small-claims is to get a judgment quickly (and cheaply), and for the judge to apply a bit of "common sense" to small-scale disputes. To generalize from an "injustice" in small-claims to saying that the entire court system should be questioned is weak logic.
2. We don't know enough about the judge's ruling to say whether this was really a mistake or not. We've only heard one side of the story. The judge will have considered evidence and statements from both parties. For all we know the defendant provided some reasonable explanation (e.g. provided sufficient evidence that this was a one-time mistake). It's quite possibly that this was a correct ruling.
3. Also worth noting is that the judge isn't really saying "this isn't spam" but rather saying "there is insufficient evidence that this is spam." So the judge's ruling shouldn't be construed as an endorsement of what the defendant did--it could merely be that from a single email alone (and without, e.g. proof that the same email was sent to other people) the judge cannot reasonably come to that conclusion.
So, while this makes for an interesting case to test what types of spam can be fought in small-claims court, I believe generalizing beyond that is not valid. I'm not saying that the court system is without faults--but this present evidence is weak indeed.
You may say: "So what, it's the buyer's fault for being stupid." However there is a point where it goes from "stupid buyer" to "fraudulent seller." If you bought a DVD player, brought it home, and in the box found a brick instead of a piece of electronics, you would be (rightly) pissed. It's fraud. The brick does not have the same value (to you or anyone else) as the money you just handed over. Similarly (if more subtly) when a seller tells you he is selling you "an ionizing wristband" that "improves wellness" he is flat-out lying. That is fraud. The wristband will not improve the person's life to the extent they were led to believe.
So, while I agree that ultimately "something is worth exactly what people are willing to pay for it", we must be watchful for scams where what is delivered is not what is advertised. (Selling "metal wristband" for $600 is okay, selling "ionizing wristband that improves wellness" for $600 is fraud.)
And, to be clear, it's not like people have not studied these dowsing claims. People like James Randi have organized a one million dollar prize for anyone who can prove that they can perform dowsing (or other "paranormal" things). Many have tried, and yet the prize has still not been claimed. So, at a minimum, we can say that self-professed dowsing experts cannot perform their trick on demand (or perhaps none of them want fame and/or money?). Considering how many people claim that dowsing is real, and that none of them have offered up evidence, that is quite telling.
The studies performed by Randi (and others) were not exceedingly large, but they used proper scientific techniques (multiple random blind trials, calculating error bars, etc.), and none of them have turned up a shred of evidence for dowsing being real. To conduct a larger study would be a waste of money, since at present we have no evidence of it working at all. (You may as well conduct a large-scale study about how to extract useful energy from the temperature variations produced by ghosts.) A larger study wouldn't even silence "true believers" of these hoaxes, since these people (for the most part) totally disregard the scientific method.
In the "war on piracy" their intention was to prevent people from sharing music (i.e.: to at least maintain their previous business model). However, the consumers won that war: at present people routinely fileshare. Most people I know have an iPod (or equivalent) and all of them have it filled with music, where they only paid for 0-20% of those tracks. The average consumer is file-sharing. The industry couldn't stop it. The consumers won that battle, and the industry lost.
As they say, however, the battle may be won but the war is far from over. The grander issue here is whether copyright law itself is valid in its present form... and whether changing it means more protections/enforcement (for the established industry), or more freedoms/rights (for the citizens). I'm still boycotting new music purchases. As well you should. There are so many better sources for music (independent labels, creative commons music, etc.) that there is no excuse for purchasing any music from companies involved in the unethical legal and lobbying tactics of the established cartel.
That's when the real victory will come: when these currently "fringe" sources of music become the norm, and the established cartel withers away (or reinvents itself to survive).
Some people will indeed obtain music in order to really enjoy it, and listen to every nuance. But they are the minority (in a marketing sense anyway), and in any case they are the ones most likely to pay in various ways (CDs, merchandise, going to shows, donating money, etc.), so they are certainly not the "problem" when it comes to this "decreasing apparent value of music."
As you said, video games are a good comparison. For $30-40, you can get a Nintendo DS game that will provide you with hours and hours of focused entertainment. As such, the $/hour cost of that entertainment is low (and most people pay it without worry). On the other hand, buying an album for ~$20, when you may only listen to the tracks a few times (and listen to them "incidentally" at that) becomes ridiculous (it may end up being on the order of $/minute of entertainment).
Whether it's "right" or "wrong" is irrelevant. The fact is that people will subconsciously make these value assessments, and will not feel bad about circumventing legitimate channels if those are too expensive.
The solution, of course, is brutally simple... and totally unappealing to the music industry. If you sold music at very low cost (pennies per track, or a monthly fee that provided unlimited download of a comprehensive catalog), then people would pay for it without a second thought. But this is a scary proposition because it is tantamount to admitting that what you are selling is not some exceedingly rare and valuable product, but rather a commodity service. The industry fears that this will mean lower profits, though that is debatable.
In the meantime, people are naturally coming up with their own solutions: either ignoring copyright law or seeking legitimate channels where the pricing is more reasonable (e.g. listening to Creative Commons music from places like Jamendo and donating to "worthy" bands).
So, if the NSA was indeed intentionally creating a backdoor, then they were doing a disservice to the "national security" they are supposedly protecting. By allowing (encouraging, in fact) top-secret government data to be encrypted in this way, they would be making the nation's secrets quite vulnerable. By comparison, private citizens and corporations can use whatever encryption they like, regardless of NSA recommendations.
I suppose one could argue that the NSA thought that no one would figure it out, so that they (and they alone) would be able to break that encryption for all time (so that they can spy on other branches of the government?). I think a simpler explanation is that NSA just made a mistake in endorsing that algorithm, and never intended to threaten national security. Of course it will be interesting to see what position they take now that a flaw has been publicly identified.
I think you might be creating a false dichotomy. We all understand that Slashdot has to attract eyeballs, and thus has to keep a constant flow of interesting/catchy stories on the front page. However what is at issue is the presentation of those stories.
In particular, the GP wasn't saying that Slashdot should be a news site, or even saying that dupes are an egregious sin. Instead, he was providing possible ways for making such stories useful instead of aggravating. It is indeed aggravating to read something only to discover that it's more-or-less the same thing you've already read, but much less so if you're forewarned about how this fits in with previous stories. Slashdot has made some progress in this department (with the "Related Stories" links), but more work needs to be done. A "dupe" isn't necessarily bad if it is framed properly (e.g. "here's an update on X" or "it's been awhile since we've heard about X" or "for those of you who missed the last story on X, here's another one"). I'm pretty sure that people will still load Slashdot, still join the discussion, and so forth. What we are asking for is not that every article be totally fresh and original, but that summaries are accurate and useful, which means pointing out how the current news/article differs from previous news/articles on the same subject (if it's a dupe, just say so!).
For those of us who like Slashdot and read many of the stories, unlabeled dupes are annoying... and we want to help fix the situation. An upgrade to the Slashdot admin interface (which tries to auto-detect dupes or related links) is one solution. Another one, which would exploit the collective memory (and detail-oriented nature) of Slashdot readership would be to allow people to add "related links" to articles (preferably at the firehose stage). If enough people add the same link (maybe weighted by karma), it is probably not linkspam and can be promoted automatically to be displayed. This would give editors information on related stories, and allow them to better judge the novelty of a submission.
It doesn't take much thinking to see that this generalized concept is often false. In fact, many of the truly successful companies got to where they are by creating a new market, not beating out others in an established market. The Internet has seen many of these success stories (Google, eBay, etc.). In fact it can be a winning strategy (though arguably more difficult) to carve out a new niche of customers, rather than fighting over established markets (e.g. what Nintendo is doing with the Wii). Maybe a company releases a product/service just to make money, not to compete or kill something else. Ideally, yes. In fact, many companies would deliver a far better user experience (and probably make more money) if they focused on ways to establish a significant user base that was happy with the product, rather than always desperately trying to increase marketshare.
But, this obsession with "winning the competition" runs deep. For instance, many people won't consider Mac or Linux "a success" until it has significant marketshare--even though the current users of those platforms are very happy with their user experience. And, arguably, one of the reasons that the customer experience can be so good in these smaller markets is because the focus has to be placed on quality instead of quantity.
This is mostly speculation on my part... but:
For awhile the RIAA was sending out random letters to people, offering settlements. Probably many people did settle, for undisclosed sums in cases that were never made public.
But the RIAA decided to step it up a notch, and create a publicity campaign along the lines of "steal our stuff and you'll get caught" by suing tons of people simultaneously. However this seems to be backfiring: the publicity is making people realize that this is a widespread problem, and is making the weak points in the RIAA's accusations publicly known. So, people are more willing to fight when they: (1) realize there are many other people in the same situation as them, and (2) exchange information on "how to win."
Now this situation is far from over, and it may indeed turn out that many of these accused people will go to trial. Some of them may even lose, and have to pay egregious sums (e.g. $200,000 for sharing ~20 tracks). However the publicity with respect to these infringement cases is making it much easier for people to organize and fight. It is also making the RIAA (and associated labels/business sector) look evil and incompetent.
So, in a twisted sort of way, the publicity blitz to stop filesharing may actually make people more brazen.
The same problem occurs with any "leaked documents" or "anonymous whistle-blowers" or anonymous "sources" in general. We cannot judge the reputation of the person who is doing the leaking, so we can only use the information itself as a guide. In particular, we can see whether the leaked information matches with what we see externally. We can also use the reaction of the affected organizations as a partial guide.
Ultimately, with leaks we must use our own judgment, with full knowledge that many "leaks" are probably fabricated or altered in some way. At a minimum, potentially leaked information gives people clues for what they should be further investigating.
First, it should be noted that OLPC is targeting developing nations where there is some momentum to improve things, but where access to technological resources and information are limiting growth. They are not focusing on the "desperately poor" countries where starvation is the overriding concern (take a look at the participating countries). Second, the XO laptops are meant to work side-by-side with other forms of relief, aid, education, and infrastructure improvement.
Saying "why bother with OLPC when people are starving?" is like saying "why bother sponsoring a local child to go to a swimming competition when people are starving?" We can simultaneously be philanthropic in different ways to different groups. Moreover, focusing only on the "most dire" problems (and ignoring everything else) is not a good way to help the world as a whole develop into a safer, more equitable place. So, I view OLPC as a part of the overall puzzle: a positive step that can be implemented in some countries, and which will help stimulate those countries to become more prosperous and independent.
Yes, OLPC is focusing their efforts on third-world countries, but also the US education system is mostly ignoring OLPC. The "why" is fairly simple: it's not because US children do not deserve a good education, and not because they wouldn't benefit from computer access. But, the fact is that the US is structured such that OLPC may not be the "best fit." For instance many libraries in the US have computers in them, and many schools do also. It would appear that in the US the effort is being put into these kinds of educational resources. Whether or not that is the best way to spend US education dollars is of course up for debate.
But it's not really fair to imply that OLPC is ignoring US education. As I said, educational institutes in the US are free to make a case for funding such projects. OLPC will gladly ship the units.
For those interested, here's a link to the actual order page.
The two laptops will cost $399.00 USD, and shipping is $24.95 USD (for a total of $423.95 USD). Open to residents of US and Canada only. Paypal is the default payment option (credit cards are also accepted). Of that, $200 is considered a tax-deductible donation. Your contribution also gets you 1 year of free Wi-Fi access at T-Mobile hotspots.
The website says that they will try to deliver the laptop before the holidays, but that initial supplies are limited (TFA says 40,000 units in this first month, with 20,000 ready before Christmas), so if you're keen to get one of these things, you should order sooner rather than later.
I'm certainly curious to see how many orders get put in. If a large number of geeks buy these things as hacking toys, then they could very well become the best platform for a variety of tasks. For example, maybe this will finally be a viable e-book reader (portable, rugged, long battery life, display that can be used in ambient light, etc.). Should be interesting.
Not to mention that I sincerely doubt that anyone is currently using some super-secret ultra-elite hashing algorithm that no one else knows about. This field of mathematics and security is quite mature and very much open to scrutiny currently. The current solutions are fully documented. I think the point here is that further progress isn't going to be made by lone researchers hiding their results: the only way forward is via more open collaboration. What better way to get the methods than to have a 'competition', something that will stroke the egos of crackers? If a cracker wants to sell his secrets at the cost of an ego-stroke, that's his choice. Nothing nefarious here. Again, NIST is not going to take these results and use them for evil ends (or even for commercial gain): they are hoping to create an open, public standard that everyone will benefit from (and which international experts in mathematics, cryptography, and computer security will analyze in detail). That's what NIST does.
Sorry, but I think your paranoia is unfounded in this case!
(Disclosure: I work with NIST, but have nothing to do with this project. Note that my opinions are my own and should not be construed as official statements from NIST.)
To give a more extreme example, if Facebook decided to use people's profile pictures, and Photoshop their heads on the bodies of naked people... would that be okay? Probably not. No amount of EULA mumb-jumbo or implied consent would make that legally permissible, both because of the particular laws that apply to things like modeling (especially adult modeling) and because any court would agree that this exceeded a "reasonable expectation" of the rights the user was granting to Facebook.
Now, in the case of this ad situation, I'll admit it's a bit less clear, but similar logic applies. There are special laws when it comes to endorsement, advertising, and commercial use of a person's likeness. Moreover, I think most courts would agree that this exceeds the "reasonable expectation" of what rights the user was granting when they signed onto Facebook.
I don't think this is an idea Facebook should pursue (unless it is explicitly opt-in), because doing it without permission opens the door to a class-action lawsuit. No amount of legalese in a click-through agreement can over-ride the common sense of a judge who can plainly see that people didn't intend for this to happen when they signed up for the service.
When the world is covered with a grid of network nodes every meter, when we are online 100% of the time everywhere we go, we are going to need a network infrastructure which is flexible and smart. This vision of ubiquitous connectivity isn't going to happen if we allow the telecoms to make the rules: they will charge so much for every little service that it will be far too expensive to maintain the connectivity you mention. As for "infrastructure which is flexible and smart"--I believe that's part of what network neutrality is about. One of the issues with allowing ISPs to filter content based on type (and especially based on origin/destination) is that such a system inherently becomes inflexible. Moreover it isn't smart, because people will fight against the traffic shaping rules if they don't conform to the way people want to use the net (e.g. people will start encrypting everything or spoofing origin IP or hiding one kind of traffic inside another).
An "arms race" between the infrastructure and the users is neither flexible nor efficient. It is wasteful and frustrating. The genius of the Internet was that it was a simple system that would blindly pass packets to their destination. It was this generality and equality that allowed a whole slew of new applications to evolve. The point is that we can't imagine, today, what the next "killer app" of the net is going to be... but traffic shaping inherently says "these are the services that are important"--which means anything currently unimagined will remain unimplemented forever.
One of the important things to remember is that communication infrastructure requires using a limited public resource (e.g. burying cables on public property or even easements on private property, or using the limited bandwidth of wireless spectra
So, given that government involvement (and moreover, the creation of various forms of monopoly) is inevitable, the question cannot be "do we want the government involved?" but rather "what do we want government involvement to be?"
The incumbent communication companies are, basically, abusing the monopoly status that was granted to them. That monopoly status was granted with an implied (and only occasionally codified) ethos: namely that this would create widespread access to the resource for the citizenry. Things like prioritizing traffic and double-charging people for access are explicitly contrary to the intention with which the monopolies were granted. Hence, it is totally reasonable to ask that government amend the agreement with these companies, so that they actually deliver the service they were supposed to deliver.
Put otherwise: why should government keep giving monopolies to companies that are not acting in ways that benefit the citizens?
Instead, I imagine the initial linkup might be the limiting step. The system might require an initially higher-power signal (that is broad so that targeting tolerances are lower) to initialize the link, then active feedback could allow the two ends to narrow the beams for lower-energy high-speed data transfer. Maybe the initial phase will use conventional radio signals (or radar) to establish the locations (and relative movement) of the two endpoints of the link. With that information, the two ends can then aim the laser fairly accurately.
I could see it working but the receiver would have to be huge. It's hard enough to hit someone with a gun at a mile using a laser sight (windage which would be comparable to space effect on the laser light). Luckily there is no wind in space, and the motion of objects is measurable and fairly predictable. Obviously over those distances any amount of error or jitter translates to a huge positioning error, but laser-steering systems can also be made quite accurate (not to mention that a laser doesn't have to be perfectly collimated, you can easily tune the aperture so that the beam is 500 m wide at the target... as long as the laser is strong enough, the receiver will still easily be able to measure the signal).
And I suppose you wired your house yourself, then? You would never use an ethernet card without first fully understanding all its circuitry? And you programmed all your apps yourself, in assembly?
There's nothing wrong with using high-level programming languages, software libraries, and pre-built hardware. Using these pre-built components to build a useful device is no different than combining servers, routers, and wiring to build a network. You do *not* have to be intimately familiar with the low-level details of all the hardware in order to combine it together in a useful way.
These hardware modules looks like they could be very fun and very useful. A great way for a DIY person to put together a fun toy, or an inexpensive solution to a problem, etc. It could also be quite useful for people who want to prototype new device ideas without commissioning expensive custom components.
No one is arguing that the existence of these modular devices will replace the need for dedicated hardware for many applications (and the associated specialized engineers who design that hardware). The idea instead would be to lower the barrier to creating novel devices, so that hobbyists and non-specialists can try out new ideas that would have been prohibitively expensive otherwise.
I know many people bemoan this "Cult of the Amateur" (e.g. Wikipedia, blogs, citizen journalism, high-level programming languages, etc.); but to me the whole "point" of technology in general (and computers in particular) is to reduce the barriers, so that "ordinary people" can do things that previously only a "selected few" were allowed to do. I find that this push towards community-driven work and lower barriers to technological progress and education are very much good things.
The presented rationale for not banning smoking for youngsters misses, I think, the real reasoning for having the ban. The reasoning goes something like:
1. Smoking is bad, and should be discouraged as much as possible.
2. All people should have the freedom to do what they like to themselves. However, an exception to this rule can be made when it comes to minors, who may make poor choices. The freedom of a minor can be abridged if it can be shown that this is "for their own safety". In any case, adults (defined as 18+ in most jurisdictions) shall have full freedom to do what they want to their own possessions and bodies.
3. Smoking is sufficiently "bad" that it warrants the restricting of a minor's freedom.
In this argument, the difference between the minor and the adult is not the harm it causes them, but the assessment about personal responsibility. Our society views the safety of minors as being a communal responsibility. Until the minor is old enough to reason for themselves (arbitrarily set at age 18), then their parents and/or society will make certain choices on their behalf. If they still select the harmful behavior as an adult, that's their choice. But it would be immoral for society to allow those without full cognitive ability to make harmful decisions. (Same rationale applies to adults who have impaired cognitive abilities; in which case someone is designated to make responsible choices on their behalf.)
We "allow" adults to smoke not because the consensus is that it isn't "bad" but rather because personal freedom and self-determination are viewed as being more important than saving someone from themselves.
It doesn't seem too different from psych experiments where a researcher stands in a public place and does something or asks a certain question. (E.g. a famous one was to have an attractive female and male person ask passerbys on a college campus if they wanted to go have casual sex right now.) I was under the impression that experiments in public places didn't require the explicit consent of each unwitting participant (provided, of course, that the experiment involves only normal everyday interaction, like asking questions, and does not induce undue stress on participants, etc.).
I fully agree that any experiment involving humans (even over the Internet) should require internal review and approval. But why would this experiment not pass? It doesn't seem like the burden imposed on the unwitting participants is very large, considering that they are voluntarily participating in an interactive "public space" online and have no expectation of privacy or even peace (the bot wasn't doing anything that a human player couldn't or wouldn't).
Of course another aspect of passing review is that the data recovered should be sufficiently robust, meaningful, and significant that it warrants intruding on the lives of subjects. Perhaps it is this criteria that you feel it fails?
That having been said, I totally agree with your post: 28 events is a ridiculously small sample size to try and measure the behavior of people in virtual worlds. Considering they went to the bother of writing a bot, one would hope they will leave it running for awhile longer to accumulate more data.
Clearly what we need is a Facebook group for "Get Facebook to support OpenSocial!"
:)
As we all know, when Facebook groups become big enough, they can move mountains...
Indeed, and the differentiation between users and developers is critical in this case. Basically, most users don't care about APIs and open standards and such (until, of course, the day they try to migrate all their perfectly tagged photos from one site to another... and discover they can't).
The developers are the ones who might care about APIs and open standards. Now, I'll admit that some casual developers of Facebook widgets don't care too much about portability and open standards. But, I would guess that many (most?) developers of social widgets do care about such things. As a developer, why would you want your work to be coupled to a single site, which is not under your control? Most programmers would prefer to have the ability to move their code from place to place, and for their widgets/applications to be accessible to as many people as possible (otherwise, why are they releasing it in the first place?).
So whereas users might not care about these things, I think many programmers/developers are going to be more interested in working on OpenSocial tools and widgets, rather than contributing to a walled garden that they have no control over. (E.g. Facebook can come up with a tightly-coupled widget that completely replaces your pet project.)
If the developers care, they could certainly shift the balance of power towards OpenSocial. Users may not care about APIs and open standards, but they certainly do care about awesome widgets, the ability to link with a large and growing social network, and (perhaps most importantly) the ability to migrate their current profile into this new network. If everyone except Facebook (for instance) is part of this OpenSocial network, then Facebook users will indeed be annoyed that they cannot interact with the cool toys everyone else is playing with.