For every situation that gets resolved through the bully pulpit of Slashdot (including katie.com and Belkin router spam), there are many, such as jibjab that the EFF has to take up. Much more importantly, how many cases of legal abuse do we not hear about? eWeek.com (or by proxy its lawyers) committed a wrong and contributed to the chilling of free speech. A sincere apology would involve an attempt to help the known and unknown, present and future, victims of legal harassment, such as a sizeable contribution (say, $10,000) to EFF.
Anything less would ring hollow, and just be yet another case of a corporation playing the 9-year-old on the playground, "Just kidding -- I take it back."
We view with equal alarm reports that at least some P2P file-sharing services are adding encryption features to those services. The addition of such encryption features will make it more difficult, if not impossible, for law enforcement to police users of P2P technology in order to prosecute crimes such as child pornography. Encryption only reinforces the perception that P2P technology is being used primarily for illegal ends. Accordingly, we would ask you to refrain from making design changes to your software that prevent law enforcement in our States from investigating and enforcing the law.
Spurred by The Great Train Robbery and subsequent story films, film exhibition greatly expanded in the United States around 1905. One phenomenon was the proliferation of nickelodeon theaters, converted storefronts in industrial cities that charged 5 cents for admission and attracted working-class audiences. Demand from these theaters increased the volume of film production and the profits for producers, but it also brought forth criticism from reformers concerning unsanitary or unsafe conditions in theaters and immoral subject matter in films.
I think you miss the difference between tennantcy and those who have a freehold on real estate.
While you understood and then expanded upon my implications of independent land ownership in space, I think you missed a distinction between residency and production in suburbia.
While suburban residents may own independent plots, they are not allowed to produce upon them. And as I indicated in my blog article, there are no affordable commercial plots because they are all multi-acre -- such as strip shopping centers. Retail space in a shopping center is leased rather than sold, as individual rowhouse stores are in small-town urban form.
Again, your analogy of space to the U.S. frontier is astute. Thinking about it some more, though, it just may be that individual plot ownership has no role in space due to its inhospitality. Taking your analogy of sea transport to space transport, I don't share your vision of competition, but rather imagine that the situation would still be monopolistic, controlled by corporations or government, or both. Namely, I expect space transport to be controlled similar to airlines today. All civil liberties are now gone in airports; there are excessive "security" taxes; some countries are cut off from airline service for strictly political reasons; etc.
To a certain extent, people need other people to survive. But the degree to which this is true in space (compared to the U.S. frontier) and the dependency on a likely transport monopoly (and monopolies on space homesteading equipment) leads me to believe that individual plot ownership in space would be meaningless even in the unlikely scenario that governments and corporations would allow it.
That's why libel often involves sexual issues. It doesn't matter that you might not stigmatize a sexual assault victim -- it only matters that a significant enough segment of the public -- legitamtely or not -- stigmatizes a sexual assault victim. From a strictly pragmatic perspective, it's advantageous to marry someone who has not been a sexual assault victim, since there will be fewer psychological problems in the bedroom (plus smaller chance of sexually transmitted disease).
As articulated in Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful, when a large (or even medium-sized) corporation owns a large tract of land, it's not much different than the government doing the same. In both cases, the quaint notion of "private property" is lost -- the idea that the means of production is available to an individual.
That is why "left vs. right", "conservative vs. liberal", "Republican vs. Democrat" in the U.S. is a false dichotomy -- the real battle should be over individual liberty vs. fascism, not over whether fascism should be in the form of large corporations or government.
It's unbelievable how many people know about jibjab -- a lot more than know about DMCA and "fair use." This may finally get the message through to Joe & Jane Public that the music industry's actions aren't just about making people pay for music, it's about limiting availability of possible creative works by preventing them in the first place. Joe & Jane Public understand "can't get this at all" a lot better than "you oughtn't've downloaded that without paying for it."
Douglas Engelbart, who prototyped the web hardware (including mouse) in 1966, started bootstrap.org in 1988 to pursue his vision of deep contextual hyperlinks:
The [Open Hyperdocument System]'s initial design specifications are a result of 50 years of innovation and experimentation by Doug Engelbart and his team of researchers among a variety of user communities, including aerospace and software development. These requirements include fine-grained addressability of all types of documents and support for multiple ways of viewing and manipulating them. Some of these features have found their way into existing tools, such as the World Wide Web, while others are currently being explored. The purpose of the OHS is to serve as a standard framework for these features, so that different applications may interoperate with the DKR and with each other.
As with the mouse, it seems someone else is going to popularize fine-grained hyperlinks.
In fact, the bill doesn't even mention technology:
'intentionally induces' means intentionally aids, abets, induces, or procures, and intent may be shown by acts from which a reasonable person would find intent to induce infringement based upon all relevant information about such acts then reasonably available to the actor, including whether the activity relies on infringement for its commercial viability.
That goes straight to the First Amendment, and even any discussion about "fair use" (such as on Slashdot) would be deemed copyright infringement.
Assuming that copyrights are first reduced to "limited times" as spelled out by the Constitution, an inducement law might be appropriate -- to prosecute (rather than reward with millions of dollars) people like Shawn Fanning of Napster who actively solicit infringement of specific copyrighted titles. But this bill is not that because it is overly broad.
To have a fiasco, you first you have to detect a fiasco.
Also, fiasco to whom? We know the either Bush or Kerry will win, and it doesn't matter which one. The election of 2004 will be about ballot access for 2008 -- which minor parties will get at least 5%, and which minor parties, if any, will get a large enough percentage to create a psychological mandate to snowball to displace one of the two major parties in the future. Remember, Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican, was a minor party candidate.
Regardless of whether irregularities go undetected, and regardless of whether Bush or Kerry wins, electronic voting is helping perpetuate the one-party Republicrat system in the U.S.
This happened in a state where shoplifting a few DVD's (anything over $200) will lose you your voting rights for life. While I disagree with such a harsh punishment, I don't understand why a $1000 crime goes unprosecuted. It's the familiar refrain: minorities and the poor are nailed to the wall, while the rich and the majority race are given a pass.
Also, the FBI did specifically confirm that due to the multiple states involved, it would normally be their case, but that due to their new focus they could not handle it. So it's their word against yours that "'anti-terrorism' has nothing to do with it."
I have such little respect for the FBI now, that I will never lease or finance again, to ensure that the transaction stays within the same state and I retain access to redress.
True story that happened to me. I leased a car for 3 years, 15,000 miles limit per year. I turn it in and get a bill of $1000 for over-mileage. I request a fax of the contract to compare against my copy. Their copy has 15,000 scratched out and 12,000 written next to it with forged initials. Because the lease was handled out-of-state (even though the dealer was in-state), the local police said it was an FBI matter. The FBI said it was too small an issue to worry about after 9-11.
I finally got my money back (only after a threatening, certified letter stipulating hard deadlines and escalations), but some crook (my guess is from the dealership) got off scott-free. Thanks to the FBI and so-called anti-terrorism. I feel safe.
Isn't it obvious that the first step to having a free market is having published prices?
Until your XML-enabled thermostat, XML-enabled X-10 command center, or XML-enabled ADT Security Panel reports out the current $/kwh, energy should not be market-priced to the minute. Somehow, California missed this in its great experiment.
Indeed, one of the biggest security problems hitting end users these days is spyware; and indeed, the article author is correct in identifying the switch from Applets to ActiveX as a major cause. It's not an exclusive clause, because streaming media needs ActiveX, but, please, fly-out menus do not (and it's the proliferation of such menus necessary for navigation on many websites that cause users to give their browsers a blank check for ActiveX).
However, it's not programmer laziness that prompted the switch to ActiveX -- it was that Microsoft never included a JVM beyond 1.0. And this was for monopolistic reasons. While quality code may be necessary for secure code, the same can be said for a non-monopolistic market (and of course neither is sufficient by itself).
It's just another example of how academic researchers are out of touch with reality -- in this case, it's so extreme, that the researcher ignored The Microsoft Problem.
And this highway LED sign is real too
on
Reverse Graffiti
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Political commentary at the Key Bridge in DC
on
Reverse Graffiti
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· Score: 5, Interesting
There's a sign on the Virginia side of the Key Bridge that goes into Washington, DC that has become a cultural phenomenon of political commentary. Who knows what the sign was really for -- it probably announced that the bridge was the "Francis Scott Key Bridge" or something. Then after 9-11 it was spray-painted with something patriotic -- a flag I think. Then after people started realizing Bush was just using 9-11 as an excuse to advance an empire and limit civil liberties, the patriotic graffiti was grafitti'd over. IIRC, the oldest one shown at this Georgetown lawyer's website was the first, "Read Orwell". After that, it went back and forth between pro-war and anti-war messages.
Oddly, authorities never cleaned it up. It's like it's become an unofficial but implicitly sanctioned public forum.
It's a market mystery, much like the Internet was. The Internet was humming along for a quarter century, then all of sudden, whammo. Early adopters were there from the beginning, but there was something about the mass market that wasn't ready until 1994. What, I'm still not sure.
Same with home theater. Back in 1983, There was a store down the road from where I live called "Future Tech" that was the inspiration to all us Northern Virginia nerds at the time -- half Atari home computers and half home theater (before that term was coined). In the back was a room plastered with foam sound panels, a 10 foot diagonal Kloss front-projection screen, LaserDisc, and surround sound. It wasn't that different than a DVD/big screen/surround setup of today.
Due to still being in school, it wasn't until 1988 that I had my own home theater. So when DVD/home theater became the rage in 1998, I'm like, OK, so what? The video quality is no better than LaserDisc.
Back in the 1980's we were all waiting for HDTV. Some were even holding off buying NTSC TV's because they thought they'd have to throw them out when HDTV came out just around the corner. Marc Wielage on CompuServe's CEFORUM (the moral equivalent of Commander Taco on Slashdot in the 1980's) kept trying to make bets that HDTV would not come out before 1990, and no one would take him up on it. It's 2004 and we still don't have pre-recorded HDTV movies.
If it weren't for DVD's, I'm sure we'd have digital video HDTV LaserDiscs by now. DVD's may have made the studios money, but they're no friend of the videophile.
"Memorable quote": The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.
Slashdot Mirror
Allegory of the Cave
Anything less would ring hollow, and just be yet another case of a corporation playing the 9-year-old on the playground, "Just kidding -- I take it back."
While suburban residents may own independent plots, they are not allowed to produce upon them. And as I indicated in my blog article, there are no affordable commercial plots because they are all multi-acre -- such as strip shopping centers. Retail space in a shopping center is leased rather than sold, as individual rowhouse stores are in small-town urban form.
Also, to address your tangential remark on malls, I side with the urban planners. See my blog entries Connecticut Supreme Court rules malls can block free speech and Privatizing of the public realm restricting RFID protesters.
Again, your analogy of space to the U.S. frontier is astute. Thinking about it some more, though, it just may be that individual plot ownership has no role in space due to its inhospitality. Taking your analogy of sea transport to space transport, I don't share your vision of competition, but rather imagine that the situation would still be monopolistic, controlled by corporations or government, or both. Namely, I expect space transport to be controlled similar to airlines today. All civil liberties are now gone in airports; there are excessive "security" taxes; some countries are cut off from airline service for strictly political reasons; etc.
To a certain extent, people need other people to survive. But the degree to which this is true in space (compared to the U.S. frontier) and the dependency on a likely transport monopoly (and monopolies on space homesteading equipment) leads me to believe that individual plot ownership in space would be meaningless even in the unlikely scenario that governments and corporations would allow it.
That's why libel often involves sexual issues. It doesn't matter that you might not stigmatize a sexual assault victim -- it only matters that a significant enough segment of the public -- legitamtely or not -- stigmatizes a sexual assault victim. From a strictly pragmatic perspective, it's advantageous to marry someone who has not been a sexual assault victim, since there will be fewer psychological problems in the bedroom (plus smaller chance of sexually transmitted disease).
I expound on this a bit in my blog entry Suburban development: the new serfdom.
That is why "left vs. right", "conservative vs. liberal", "Republican vs. Democrat" in the U.S. is a false dichotomy -- the real battle should be over individual liberty vs. fascism, not over whether fascism should be in the form of large corporations or government.
Couldn't Katie Jones sue Katie Tarbox for libeling her as a sexual assault victim?
If the chips are to be as pinless as a Scrabble tile, how will they be powered?
It's unbelievable how many people know about jibjab -- a lot more than know about DMCA and "fair use." This may finally get the message through to Joe & Jane Public that the music industry's actions aren't just about making people pay for music, it's about limiting availability of possible creative works by preventing them in the first place. Joe & Jane Public understand "can't get this at all" a lot better than "you oughtn't've downloaded that without paying for it."
In 15 months, space station will have 1/4 MW of power, but hold just 3 people
Let us redefine progress to mean that just because we can do a thing, it does not necessarily mean we must do that thing.
Assuming that copyrights are first reduced to "limited times" as spelled out by the Constitution, an inducement law might be appropriate -- to prosecute (rather than reward with millions of dollars) people like Shawn Fanning of Napster who actively solicit infringement of specific copyrighted titles. But this bill is not that because it is overly broad.
Also, fiasco to whom? We know the either Bush or Kerry will win, and it doesn't matter which one. The election of 2004 will be about ballot access for 2008 -- which minor parties will get at least 5%, and which minor parties, if any, will get a large enough percentage to create a psychological mandate to snowball to displace one of the two major parties in the future. Remember, Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican, was a minor party candidate.
Regardless of whether irregularities go undetected, and regardless of whether Bush or Kerry wins, electronic voting is helping perpetuate the one-party Republicrat system in the U.S.
Also, the FBI did specifically confirm that due to the multiple states involved, it would normally be their case, but that due to their new focus they could not handle it. So it's their word against yours that "'anti-terrorism' has nothing to do with it."
I have such little respect for the FBI now, that I will never lease or finance again, to ensure that the transaction stays within the same state and I retain access to redress.
I finally got my money back (only after a threatening, certified letter stipulating hard deadlines and escalations), but some crook (my guess is from the dealership) got off scott-free. Thanks to the FBI and so-called anti-terrorism. I feel safe.
Until your XML-enabled thermostat, XML-enabled X-10 command center, or XML-enabled ADT Security Panel reports out the current $/kwh, energy should not be market-priced to the minute. Somehow, California missed this in its great experiment.
However, it's not programmer laziness that prompted the switch to ActiveX -- it was that Microsoft never included a JVM beyond 1.0. And this was for monopolistic reasons. While quality code may be necessary for secure code, the same can be said for a non-monopolistic market (and of course neither is sufficient by itself).
It's just another example of how academic researchers are out of touch with reality -- in this case, it's so extreme, that the researcher ignored The Microsoft Problem.
Operation TIPS alive and well in Virginia
Oddly, authorities never cleaned it up. It's like it's become an unofficial but implicitly sanctioned public forum.
Same with home theater. Back in 1983, There was a store down the road from where I live called "Future Tech" that was the inspiration to all us Northern Virginia nerds at the time -- half Atari home computers and half home theater (before that term was coined). In the back was a room plastered with foam sound panels, a 10 foot diagonal Kloss front-projection screen, LaserDisc, and surround sound. It wasn't that different than a DVD/big screen/surround setup of today.
Due to still being in school, it wasn't until 1988 that I had my own home theater. So when DVD/home theater became the rage in 1998, I'm like, OK, so what? The video quality is no better than LaserDisc.
Back in the 1980's we were all waiting for HDTV. Some were even holding off buying NTSC TV's because they thought they'd have to throw them out when HDTV came out just around the corner. Marc Wielage on CompuServe's CEFORUM (the moral equivalent of Commander Taco on Slashdot in the 1980's) kept trying to make bets that HDTV would not come out before 1990, and no one would take him up on it. It's 2004 and we still don't have pre-recorded HDTV movies.
If it weren't for DVD's, I'm sure we'd have digital video HDTV LaserDiscs by now. DVD's may have made the studios money, but they're no friend of the videophile.
Plainclothes Detroit officer refused to show ID; severs fleeing woman's finger