Right, and those of us who don't live in Mommy's basement realize that there's ways to find a job without allowing your employer to violate you.
Or did you think that "lying to get a job from an employer under false pretenses" and "working for an employer who you know to be morally and ethically bankrupt" are exemplary characteristics of adult independence?
And it will always be my answer. Whether or not I use facebook is no one's business.
That's great - if you don't use Facebook. If you do use it, then you're *lying* to a prospective employer, telling them you don't. Two wrongs don't make a right. They can't coerce you into giving it, so simply decline to provide it.
Employer: "May we have your Facebook password so we can (save the children / fight the global war on terror / end domestic assault / some other well-meaning but bullshit excuse for invading your privacy)?" You: "No you may not. My use (or non-use) of Facebook is none of your business. I guess we're done here."
The simple fact that they ASK for it, regardless of the reasoning and regardless of whether or not you use it, should be enough to warn you that you don't want to work for them.
It was a joke, aimed at your specific naming of Firefox as the thing that's going to kill Apple and Microsoft's profits... but since you seem serious:
Apple makes most of its money on hardware sales, not software. If nobody ever bought iWork again, it would barely be a blip in their quarterly statements.
Microsoft has already announced plans to deprecate Silverlight in favor of plain-old-HTML5.
Enterprise is the major customer for Office, and large businesses often have a number of people with needs for the "advanced" features that LO/OO.o implement poorly, if at all. So while LO may work great for somebody who wants to just type up a TPS report, it's less clear that there's a strong value there, because it forces corporate IT to deploy, manage, and support installation of two separate office suites then - LO for the people who need "less functionality," and Office for the people who "need the advanced features." Enterprise IT also tends to frown on people just randomly installing non-approved software on corporate systems, too. It's a thing.
Open Source gets adopted when it's good enough. I can't imagine anybody having much trouble selling Firefox, perl, python, Linux on servers, Apache, Tomcat, Eclipse, ant, MySQL, the numerous Java frameworks & libraries available, etc. etc. etc. inside a corporation. And by good enough, I mean - it covers the major features, offers something you can't get from an existing package, is compatible with legacy systems, and is reasonably easy to use (i.e., doesn't include everything but the kitchen sink, and bury all those options in poorly designed menus or - better yet - in arcane configuration files). This is the reality you're facing if you want to replace proprietary systems to the point where Apple & Microsoft & all those other commercial vendors will see significant impact to their bottom lines.
And even if they never abandon Windows or MacOS, they're still hurting those corporations by not buying their major products, and using free altenatives instead.
Yes, Microsoft's and Apple's bottom lines will be decimated by the loss of revenues from lower sales of Internet Explorer and Safari!
Income inequality has certainly gone up in China, but bear in mind that prior to the late-70's reforms where China started opening up their markets more, the number of people living in poverty was simply staggering, no matter which criteria you judge by. The move to an "unregulated rampant free market economy" has had a far greater net-positive impact than your throw-away comment about it producing "very very poor and very very rich" people suggests. China was - by either of the poverty criteria shown above - mostly, if not almost *entirely* full of "very very poor" people under Communist rule. Free market reforms have helped change that, increasing average income and lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
Indded - I live in a newfangled above-ground cave dwelling we call an "apartment building," that was built in the year of our lord 2007, and I have 2 rooms in my apartment that have no windows, and no egress other than out into the other rooms of the apartment: my bathroom, and an office.
I rather like the fact that I have no windows in my home office - If I want sunlight, I take my laptop out into the living room area or onto the balcony; artificial lighting in the office means I don't have to worry about glare on my computer screen at various times of the day, as I used to have to worry about with my last apartment.
And my neighbors thank me for not attempting to install big windows in my bathroom, as watching my hairy ass in the shower is probably about even with "drink a bottle of lye" on their list of things they want to do.
Interesting, though, that it's only certain departments, not the entire company.
Somebody at Microsoft kind of needs to have a Mac if they're doing to keep writing the OS X version of Office; They also have iOS clients for Skydrive, their XBox Live gaming platform, and reports of an Office for iOS product have been floating around for a while now.
Microsoft *is* actively developing for these platforms, so if they put a blanket ban across the company, that would kind of hinder the efforts of those groups to produce a product.
expecting it to be far, far better than every single other operating system and then complaining bitterly when it is only exactly the same in some facets.
Justify the disruption of swapping platforms, learning a new OS, and adjusting to completely different tools in lots of cases, only to have the experience be "exactly the same in some (even most) facets" once I've done all that?
You're asking users to sacrifice something known, stable, and familiar, and in return, you offer nothing but "mostly the same hassles you already have, just with a different GUI bolted on top."
For the people to whom "software freedom" is important, Linux is great. The extensibility & flexibility - if you know what you're doing - is excellent. For the people who don't, can't, or won't take advantage of that flexibility and extensibility, Linux offers little in the way of compelling features that would lead people to want to migrate to it as their primary platform.
They have the expertise in house to port the Adobe suite to Linux and Unix but they just won't do it. You can see by their other offerings that they have the ability to do it but they just won't, whether it is because of bean counting or because of OS religious hate.
Or it could be that "getting the world to adopt Linux" is not one of their holy precepts, and instead, they target the platform(s) where users of their software predominantly work, because that's where they make their money.
If porting to Linux & supporting Linux costs them an additional 10 million dollars the first year (hire a few new developers, qa, ops; buy new servers for build/test of your new platform; staff a couple tech support resources who are knowledgeable in Linux; update documentation; you get the idea), then they'd need to sell about 18,000 copies of Acrobat X Professional (MSRP = $570 according to Amazon) to Linux users just to break even. Are there 18,000 people who would shell out for the software? I suspect the answer to that is "no, no way, not on your life." And that's why they don't support Linux. Not because they "hate it," not because they have some anti-Linux zealotry going on - it simply is a money-losing proposition for them. And expecting somebody else to run their business at a loss to suit your preference in operating systems is rather foolish.
People will not say, "Gee why don't I abandon my existing, perfectly usable infrastructure running Windows (with all the stuff I need running on it) just so I can buy a copy of Adobe Acrobat, and have to relearn how to use all my tools or substitutes on a completely foreign platform." It's simply not enough to say "we're just as good, mostly," or "Linux: because you can do most of the things you do now on Windows over here too!" If there's no compelling reason to change, why would you expect anybody to change? "Software Freedom" has a practical value of zero for people who don't have the expertise and knowledge to modify or inspect their own source code, so that's really not a competitive advantage.
Quoting one sentence that says "she said they should put it in the library," while disregarding the sentence before it where it's reported that the woman in question has *actually* asked the school board to ban the book in question from use in school curriculum across the entire district, and repeatedly insisting that I provided no other information (ALA list of most-banned books? NPR report with map sourced from the ALA showing bans & challenges over the past 3 years? Said map with summary of each case, the book(s) in question, and the location where it was reported from, providing you with ample evidence to go read more details on your own?) just screams "disingenuous."
I'm done with this conversation, you're being deliberately obtuse, and I have neither the patience nor the inclination to educate you further. As I said previously, I can lead you to information, but I can't make you think.
Nope. Would having worked in the public sector help me understand why you seem incapable of processing the information I've provided you with? Would it help me understand how you can blithely assert that demanding that an entire school district remove all references to a particular book in its curriculum doesn't constitute censorship? Would it help me to understand why, despite disagreeing with me strenuously, you seem incapable of providing any information of your own to back up your commentary?
Because if it won't help me understand any of that, I'm not certain I see the relevance of the question, other than to provide you with one more excuse to hand-wave away inconvenient points I've raised, because you *really feel* like I must not be correct, despite the facts and evidence I've provided to support my statements.
If you're really more upset by the term *only hillbilly inbred republicans* here and have taken it personally, know that your emotional quarrel is with someone else.
As I've already said, I'm really more upset by the attempt to characterize "book banning" and "censorship" as something that is only a characteristic of conservatives, rather than a commonality between the extremes on both sides of the political spectrum.
If you're really more upset by the phrase "liberals also seek to ban books" and have taken it personally, know that your emotional sensitivity does not provide sufficient justification for you to pretend the facts I've laid out do not exist.
That map I linked to contains dozens of examples, if you can't be bothered to read the data provided, I'm not about to sit here and cut and paste it all for you. The example I cited was just that - if you want to read the full list, then you will, and you're welcome to - I'll not recite it for you.
Interestingly, I notice that you omitted this part of the story about Ms. Sense-Wilson:
Why is this book still an issue? Sense-Wilson wants other high schools in Seattle to stop using it in their curriculum too. The Seattle School board is meeting this afternoon to discuss the use of the book Brave New World.
Oops, guess you missed that part, huh? No, she doesn't want to ban it - she just wants to make sure that teachers can't use it in a classroom setting anywhere in the Seattle School District. I guess if we don't use ugly words like "ban," what she's trying to do doesn't constitute "banning" the book. No, it's just "a perfectly reasonable request that an entire municipal public school system change it's curriculum by pretending the book doesn't exist." There are numerous other examples on the list I provided where "racial insensitivity," are cited as the reason for wanting to ban the book - feel free to read, or not. If expanding your worldview to understand that people seek to ban books for ALL KINDS of reasons - not just because they're backwards hillbillies, or conservative - is more than you're willing to do, then I'm done trying to have a rational discussion with you.
Also:
Didn't bother to source
The links - to ALA, and the NPR writeup on the ALA's map, are my source. Again - if you can't be bothered to explore the data points on the map, I'll not do your homework for you. You wanted to chime in and tell me how wrong I was that seeking to ban books is a phenomenon that can be witnessed on both sides of the political aisle, but you've refused to offer any counter-evidence of your own, and you've obstinately refused to read the fucking data I've provided to you.
distinction between "ban" and "complain"
The distinction between the two is simply that a "complaint" precedes a "ban." The complaint in the case of Ender's Game, and the complaint in the case of Brave New World, BOTH sought to effect the removal of the book from school curriculum. You seem to think that a situation where "you can always find it in a bookstore, or a library, if you already know about the book and go seeking it out, but the teachers aren't allowed to mention the existence of the book anymore, despite their feelings on its value as a teaching aid," doesn't constitute a ban. If that's the case, may we also conclude that you support the parent in this case, and agree that Ender's Game should be banned from the curriculum, and the teacher should perhaps even be fired for bringing such "shocking" material into the classroom? I mean, people who want to read Ender's Game can always find it somewhere outside the classroom, so nobody's proposing we BAN the book - right? It's just a perfectly reasonable "complaint"!
I can only hold your hand so far, friend. I'll lead you to information, but I sure can't make you think.
The problem is that you still seem to equate "getting hysterical over a book" with book bans and censorship.
No, the problem is that you seem unable to comprehend that the cases I'm citing for you are people attempting to ban books for very liberal reasons, as well as very conservative reasons, and that in both cases, it is parents attempting to have books banned from school curriculums *because it offends their personal sensibilities somehow.* Claiming that "only inbred conservative hillbillies" will seek to ban books is a position that is as fundamentally incorrect as it is idiotic.
You seem intent on finding a way to justify suppressing a book from a school curriculum because it's not a "ban" on the book. I'm curious what you consider a ban, if forcing an entire school district (which at one point thought a book was a valuable teaching aid) to pretend a book doesn't exist, and rework their entire curriculum with a less heterodox choice? And if you really can maintain that that doesn't constitute censorship or banning of a book, well then, I guess we have a precedent to remove any book that gets challenged from any curriculum it's used in, since, you know, anybody who "wants" to read the offending book can always order themselves a copy from Amazon -- right?
My post was a response to the arrogant twat who opined that "only hillbilly inbred republicans" seek to ban books. This is patently false, as I have demonstrated. Moreover it is a dangerously naive conceit which tries to justify the liberals who try to ban books for whatever reason as "not ACTUALLY trying to ban books," and substituting some quaint euphemism in place of the word "censorship." The point is that overly sensitive people of all political stripes will seek to suppress and censor books that disagree with their orthodoxy, and it is always - for any reason, for any justification - wrong.
If you cannot understand this point, then I question your reading comprehension, as well as your claims to work as a librarian - you're certainly no friend of the written word if you're that quick to justify why an attempt to ban a book isn't "really" an attempt at censorship.
Really. Then why is Huck Finn one of the top books on the ALA's list of most-challenged books? Are you telling me that it's - to borrow a phrase from the AC I originally replied to - "inbred, hillbilly, neo-fascist, very republican bible belt" conservatives who are challenging the teaching of a book filled with racial slurs? I would think those inbred hillbillies would LOVE the idea of indoctrinating children in this manner, wouldn't you?
Congratulations on your anecdote that you've never seen a liberal parent get hysterical over a book. I assure you, it happens. As far as my links not supporting the assertion, you clearly didn't actually look at the data available on the map. If you bother to look at the map I linked, you'll also see that quite-liberal enclaves fall prey, and not - as you're probably assuming - for "Jenny's Two Mommies!" conservative hysteria. Here's a 'fer instance':
"Seattle, Washington: (2011) Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was retained on the list of approved materials that Seattle, Wash. high school teachers may use in their language arts curriculum. A parent had complained that the book has a “high volume of racially offensive derogatory language and misinformation on Native Americans. In addition to the inaccurate imagery, and stereotype views, the text lacks literary value which is relevant to today’s contemporary multicultural society."
Is the language of that objection more typical of an overly-sensitive politically-correct liberal, or an inbred conservative hillbilly? The book survived the challenge, but you're a fool if you think that extremists on both sides of the American political spectrum aren't trying to suppress materials that conflict with their world view.
In the US, all content is copyrighted. From the funny photo your mother took of you as a young child in a compromising position, to the book report you wrote in 5th grade, all the way up to the recording of you drunkenly beat boxing at the St Patty's Day party last weekend your frienemy took and shared on the Facebook. Of course all these sharing services are used to share copyrighted content. All content is copyrighted.
Would it make you feel less pedantic if I explicitly stated the implied disclaimer?
"You don't think Google is *intensely* interested in the outcome of cases regarding uploads of copyrighted materials to online sharing services, given that they own & operate sites intended for sharing, and which can - easily & trivially - be used to share copyrighted content FOR WHICH THE UPLOADER DOES NOT HOLD THE COPYRIGHTS?"
Better? Otherwise, I'm really struggling to understand why you wrote such a long-winded agreement:
The RIAA and MPAA cannot compete with free. If they can win against a little guy like hotfile or get the United States government to close down Megaupload (didn't they have a commercial where content creator's were singing how they enjoyed using it?) then they can get rid of Google or more likely convince them that giving them an insanely large cut of their revenue like they get on blank CD/DVDs.
Which is... precisely why I said what I said. Google is of COURSE intensely interested in the decision in the hotfile case, because it could impact huge portions of their services. Which is also why your comment that "Statements like yours proves that they are winning by a large margin and it is very frustrating" is so apropos of nothing as a response to anything I said, unless you really are nitpicking over the implied-not-explicit "copyrighted content for which you do not hold copyrights" clause.
Good thing the average woman in society - size 12-14, and medically considered overweight - bears little resemblance to that woman, then.
If you think that woman looks anorexic, I submit that you've never seen a real person suffering from anorexia. The woman you're referring to is certainly slender, but doesn't appear to be suffering from anorexia in any way. In fact, you can see in her shoulders and legs that she has plenty of visible muscle mass - something you're not likely to see in someone suffering from anorexia.
Do yourself a favor and go look up some images of real people with anorexia sometime - you do them a tremendous disservice by describing that woman as "anorexic."
Numerous occasions in the past three years, in fact. Do us all a favor, and go educate yourself, instead of being a dipshit with a half-assed political agenda.
Fact: Overly conservative parents object to books that they consider "pornographic" or "anti-religious." (see: Ender's Game) Fact: Overly liberal parents object to books that they consider too "racist" or "insensitive." (see: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
If you actually care to read a fairly nuanced essay about book censorship, you could start here. Then you could stop pretending that there's any difference between overly protective 'conservative' parents and overly protective 'liberal' parents when it comes to their children reading material that goes against the orthodoxy those children are being taught at home.
I don't believe any of the services that you cite are big money makers for Google and, in fact, have a history of losing money.
And they'd be even bigger money sinks if suddenly Google had to shut them down, or start paying fines, based on vague assertions by RIAA/MPAA and similar organizations about copyrighted material being uploaded to those sites. And Youtube at least was on track to be profitable by late 2010 or early 2011, last I heard. Google has spent quite a bit of time working ads into that service.
And it can be argued that Google got into these services, and continue them, out of altruistic principal -- to benefit the users.
No, it cannot be argued that they are operating these services out of altruistic principle, at least not with a straight face. If they only cared about the users, they'd offer ad-free versions of their services for a fee as an option, and they'd allow you to opt out of tracking - both things that would benefit users, but not Google. Instead you get the "benefit" of free services, in return for which you allow Google an ever-increasing view into your online activities, which it in turn uses as the basis for its advertising product. The *best* you could argue is that Google has a symbiotic relationship with its users, and I think it's possible to make a fairly good case for it being harmful (and thus parasitic) to the users.
I recognize that Google is acting out of self-interest, but fail to see any agenda on their part that even approaches the level of evil of that of the MPAA, RIAA and other such entities.
Which is precisely what I said, and why I said it: "It's cool that Google is advocating for this, but make no mistake: filing this brief is also serving their own interests." I never said "they're just as evil as the RIAA or MPAA for doing it." I don't think they truly care about the user, I think they're motivated to do this simply because it could set very dangerous legal precedents if the court decides in favor of the copyright holders. That doesn't mean there aren't ancillary benefits to the users as a result of them taking this stance, it simply means that I don't believe that those benefits are their primary motivation.
Ah hell, I'll throw one more in for free: Google Music (specifically, the "locker" feature) - remember, they never got official signoff from the labels that the music locker service was legit and they were okay with it. Labels could still go after Google for that service, though it's not clear that they'd actually win.
You don't think Google is *intensely* interested in the outcome of cases regarding uploads of copyrighted materials to online sharing services, given that they own & operate sites intended for sharing, and which can - easily & trivially - be used to share copyrighted content?
It's cool that Google is advocating for this, but make no mistake: filing this brief is also serving their own interests.
What was useful was to find ways to make clear when I was and was not at work to help my family know what to expect
This is pretty much what was meant by the firewalls comment: not that you have to set inflexible work hours, but that you should make an effort to make a clear distinction and separation between the two.
Slashdot Mirror
Right, and those of us who don't live in Mommy's basement realize that there's ways to find a job without allowing your employer to violate you.
Or did you think that "lying to get a job from an employer under false pretenses" and "working for an employer who you know to be morally and ethically bankrupt" are exemplary characteristics of adult independence?
That's great - if you don't use Facebook. If you do use it, then you're *lying* to a prospective employer, telling them you don't. Two wrongs don't make a right. They can't coerce you into giving it, so simply decline to provide it.
Employer: "May we have your Facebook password so we can (save the children / fight the global war on terror / end domestic assault / some other well-meaning but bullshit excuse for invading your privacy)?"
You: "No you may not. My use (or non-use) of Facebook is none of your business. I guess we're done here."
The simple fact that they ASK for it, regardless of the reasoning and regardless of whether or not you use it, should be enough to warn you that you don't want to work for them.
Sure, but that seems like an awful lot of work when a simple, "No." will suffice.
It was a joke, aimed at your specific naming of Firefox as the thing that's going to kill Apple and Microsoft's profits... but since you seem serious:
Apple makes most of its money on hardware sales, not software. If nobody ever bought iWork again, it would barely be a blip in their quarterly statements.
Microsoft has already announced plans to deprecate Silverlight in favor of plain-old-HTML5.
Enterprise is the major customer for Office, and large businesses often have a number of people with needs for the "advanced" features that LO/OO.o implement poorly, if at all. So while LO may work great for somebody who wants to just type up a TPS report, it's less clear that there's a strong value there, because it forces corporate IT to deploy, manage, and support installation of two separate office suites then - LO for the people who need "less functionality," and Office for the people who "need the advanced features." Enterprise IT also tends to frown on people just randomly installing non-approved software on corporate systems, too. It's a thing.
Open Source gets adopted when it's good enough. I can't imagine anybody having much trouble selling Firefox, perl, python, Linux on servers, Apache, Tomcat, Eclipse, ant, MySQL, the numerous Java frameworks & libraries available, etc. etc. etc. inside a corporation. And by good enough, I mean - it covers the major features, offers something you can't get from an existing package, is compatible with legacy systems, and is reasonably easy to use (i.e., doesn't include everything but the kitchen sink, and bury all those options in poorly designed menus or - better yet - in arcane configuration files). This is the reality you're facing if you want to replace proprietary systems to the point where Apple & Microsoft & all those other commercial vendors will see significant impact to their bottom lines.
Yes, Microsoft's and Apple's bottom lines will be decimated by the loss of revenues from lower sales of Internet Explorer and Safari!
As opposed to the glorious days when Chinese communists were actually communist, and EVERYBODY was very very poor?
53% below the poverty line in 1980; about 8% in 2001. Or, using a different source, the poverty rate fell from 85% to 16% in that same time period.
Income inequality has certainly gone up in China, but bear in mind that prior to the late-70's reforms where China started opening up their markets more, the number of people living in poverty was simply staggering, no matter which criteria you judge by. The move to an "unregulated rampant free market economy" has had a far greater net-positive impact than your throw-away comment about it producing "very very poor and very very rich" people suggests. China was - by either of the poverty criteria shown above - mostly, if not almost *entirely* full of "very very poor" people under Communist rule. Free market reforms have helped change that, increasing average income and lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
Indded - I live in a newfangled above-ground cave dwelling we call an "apartment building," that was built in the year of our lord 2007, and I have 2 rooms in my apartment that have no windows, and no egress other than out into the other rooms of the apartment: my bathroom, and an office.
I rather like the fact that I have no windows in my home office - If I want sunlight, I take my laptop out into the living room area or onto the balcony; artificial lighting in the office means I don't have to worry about glare on my computer screen at various times of the day, as I used to have to worry about with my last apartment.
And my neighbors thank me for not attempting to install big windows in my bathroom, as watching my hairy ass in the shower is probably about even with "drink a bottle of lye" on their list of things they want to do.
Yeah, what you said. Just not for the same reasons.
Somebody at Microsoft kind of needs to have a Mac if they're doing to keep writing the OS X version of Office; They also have iOS clients for Skydrive, their XBox Live gaming platform, and reports of an Office for iOS product have been floating around for a while now.
Microsoft *is* actively developing for these platforms, so if they put a blanket ban across the company, that would kind of hinder the efforts of those groups to produce a product.
Justify the disruption of swapping platforms, learning a new OS, and adjusting to completely different tools in lots of cases, only to have the experience be "exactly the same in some (even most) facets" once I've done all that?
You're asking users to sacrifice something known, stable, and familiar, and in return, you offer nothing but "mostly the same hassles you already have, just with a different GUI bolted on top."
For the people to whom "software freedom" is important, Linux is great. The extensibility & flexibility - if you know what you're doing - is excellent. For the people who don't, can't, or won't take advantage of that flexibility and extensibility, Linux offers little in the way of compelling features that would lead people to want to migrate to it as their primary platform.
Or it could be that "getting the world to adopt Linux" is not one of their holy precepts, and instead, they target the platform(s) where users of their software predominantly work, because that's where they make their money.
If porting to Linux & supporting Linux costs them an additional 10 million dollars the first year (hire a few new developers, qa, ops; buy new servers for build/test of your new platform; staff a couple tech support resources who are knowledgeable in Linux; update documentation; you get the idea), then they'd need to sell about 18,000 copies of Acrobat X Professional (MSRP = $570 according to Amazon) to Linux users just to break even. Are there 18,000 people who would shell out for the software? I suspect the answer to that is "no, no way, not on your life." And that's why they don't support Linux. Not because they "hate it," not because they have some anti-Linux zealotry going on - it simply is a money-losing proposition for them. And expecting somebody else to run their business at a loss to suit your preference in operating systems is rather foolish.
People will not say, "Gee why don't I abandon my existing, perfectly usable infrastructure running Windows (with all the stuff I need running on it) just so I can buy a copy of Adobe Acrobat, and have to relearn how to use all my tools or substitutes on a completely foreign platform." It's simply not enough to say "we're just as good, mostly," or "Linux: because you can do most of the things you do now on Windows over here too!" If there's no compelling reason to change, why would you expect anybody to change? "Software Freedom" has a practical value of zero for people who don't have the expertise and knowledge to modify or inspect their own source code, so that's really not a competitive advantage.
Scroll up.
See those links I provided?
Good. Now go read.
Quoting one sentence that says "she said they should put it in the library," while disregarding the sentence before it where it's reported that the woman in question has *actually* asked the school board to ban the book in question from use in school curriculum across the entire district, and repeatedly insisting that I provided no other information (ALA list of most-banned books? NPR report with map sourced from the ALA showing bans & challenges over the past 3 years? Said map with summary of each case, the book(s) in question, and the location where it was reported from, providing you with ample evidence to go read more details on your own?) just screams "disingenuous."
I'm done with this conversation, you're being deliberately obtuse, and I have neither the patience nor the inclination to educate you further. As I said previously, I can lead you to information, but I can't make you think.
Nope. Would having worked in the public sector help me understand why you seem incapable of processing the information I've provided you with? Would it help me understand how you can blithely assert that demanding that an entire school district remove all references to a particular book in its curriculum doesn't constitute censorship? Would it help me to understand why, despite disagreeing with me strenuously, you seem incapable of providing any information of your own to back up your commentary?
Because if it won't help me understand any of that, I'm not certain I see the relevance of the question, other than to provide you with one more excuse to hand-wave away inconvenient points I've raised, because you *really feel* like I must not be correct, despite the facts and evidence I've provided to support my statements.
As I've already said, I'm really more upset by the attempt to characterize "book banning" and "censorship" as something that is only a characteristic of conservatives, rather than a commonality between the extremes on both sides of the political spectrum.
If you're really more upset by the phrase "liberals also seek to ban books" and have taken it personally, know that your emotional sensitivity does not provide sufficient justification for you to pretend the facts I've laid out do not exist.
That map I linked to contains dozens of examples, if you can't be bothered to read the data provided, I'm not about to sit here and cut and paste it all for you. The example I cited was just that - if you want to read the full list, then you will, and you're welcome to - I'll not recite it for you.
Interestingly, I notice that you omitted this part of the story about Ms. Sense-Wilson:
Oops, guess you missed that part, huh? No, she doesn't want to ban it - she just wants to make sure that teachers can't use it in a classroom setting anywhere in the Seattle School District. I guess if we don't use ugly words like "ban," what she's trying to do doesn't constitute "banning" the book. No, it's just "a perfectly reasonable request that an entire municipal public school system change it's curriculum by pretending the book doesn't exist." There are numerous other examples on the list I provided where "racial insensitivity," are cited as the reason for wanting to ban the book - feel free to read, or not. If expanding your worldview to understand that people seek to ban books for ALL KINDS of reasons - not just because they're backwards hillbillies, or conservative - is more than you're willing to do, then I'm done trying to have a rational discussion with you.
Also:
The links - to ALA, and the NPR writeup on the ALA's map, are my source. Again - if you can't be bothered to explore the data points on the map, I'll not do your homework for you. You wanted to chime in and tell me how wrong I was that seeking to ban books is a phenomenon that can be witnessed on both sides of the political aisle, but you've refused to offer any counter-evidence of your own, and you've obstinately refused to read the fucking data I've provided to you.
The distinction between the two is simply that a "complaint" precedes a "ban." The complaint in the case of Ender's Game, and the complaint in the case of Brave New World, BOTH sought to effect the removal of the book from school curriculum. You seem to think that a situation where "you can always find it in a bookstore, or a library, if you already know about the book and go seeking it out, but the teachers aren't allowed to mention the existence of the book anymore, despite their feelings on its value as a teaching aid," doesn't constitute a ban. If that's the case, may we also conclude that you support the parent in this case, and agree that Ender's Game should be banned from the curriculum, and the teacher should perhaps even be fired for bringing such "shocking" material into the classroom? I mean, people who want to read Ender's Game can always find it somewhere outside the classroom, so nobody's proposing we BAN the book - right? It's just a perfectly reasonable "complaint"!
I can only hold your hand so far, friend. I'll lead you to information, but I sure can't make you think.
No, the problem is that you seem unable to comprehend that the cases I'm citing for you are people attempting to ban books for very liberal reasons, as well as very conservative reasons, and that in both cases, it is parents attempting to have books banned from school curriculums *because it offends their personal sensibilities somehow.* Claiming that "only inbred conservative hillbillies" will seek to ban books is a position that is as fundamentally incorrect as it is idiotic.
You seem intent on finding a way to justify suppressing a book from a school curriculum because it's not a "ban" on the book. I'm curious what you consider a ban, if forcing an entire school district (which at one point thought a book was a valuable teaching aid) to pretend a book doesn't exist, and rework their entire curriculum with a less heterodox choice? And if you really can maintain that that doesn't constitute censorship or banning of a book, well then, I guess we have a precedent to remove any book that gets challenged from any curriculum it's used in, since, you know, anybody who "wants" to read the offending book can always order themselves a copy from Amazon -- right?
My post was a response to the arrogant twat who opined that "only hillbilly inbred republicans" seek to ban books. This is patently false, as I have demonstrated. Moreover it is a dangerously naive conceit which tries to justify the liberals who try to ban books for whatever reason as "not ACTUALLY trying to ban books," and substituting some quaint euphemism in place of the word "censorship." The point is that overly sensitive people of all political stripes will seek to suppress and censor books that disagree with their orthodoxy, and it is always - for any reason, for any justification - wrong.
If you cannot understand this point, then I question your reading comprehension, as well as your claims to work as a librarian - you're certainly no friend of the written word if you're that quick to justify why an attempt to ban a book isn't "really" an attempt at censorship.
Fact: I provided citations and supporting evidence.
Fact: You are - apparently - illiterate.
Citation: Your post.
Really. Then why is Huck Finn one of the top books on the ALA's list of most-challenged books? Are you telling me that it's - to borrow a phrase from the AC I originally replied to - "inbred, hillbilly, neo-fascist, very republican bible belt" conservatives who are challenging the teaching of a book filled with racial slurs? I would think those inbred hillbillies would LOVE the idea of indoctrinating children in this manner, wouldn't you?
Congratulations on your anecdote that you've never seen a liberal parent get hysterical over a book. I assure you, it happens. As far as my links not supporting the assertion, you clearly didn't actually look at the data available on the map. If you bother to look at the map I linked, you'll also see that quite-liberal enclaves fall prey, and not - as you're probably assuming - for "Jenny's Two Mommies!" conservative hysteria. Here's a 'fer instance':
"Seattle, Washington: (2011) Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was retained on the list of approved materials that Seattle, Wash. high school teachers may use in their language arts curriculum. A parent had complained that the book has a “high volume of racially offensive derogatory language and misinformation on Native Americans. In addition to the inaccurate imagery, and stereotype views, the text lacks literary value which is relevant to today’s contemporary multicultural society."
Is the language of that objection more typical of an overly-sensitive politically-correct liberal, or an inbred conservative hillbilly? The book survived the challenge, but you're a fool if you think that extremists on both sides of the American political spectrum aren't trying to suppress materials that conflict with their world view.
Would it make you feel less pedantic if I explicitly stated the implied disclaimer?
"You don't think Google is *intensely* interested in the outcome of cases regarding uploads of copyrighted materials to online sharing services, given that they own & operate sites intended for sharing, and which can - easily & trivially - be used to share copyrighted content FOR WHICH THE UPLOADER DOES NOT HOLD THE COPYRIGHTS?"
Better? Otherwise, I'm really struggling to understand why you wrote such a long-winded agreement:
Which is... precisely why I said what I said. Google is of COURSE intensely interested in the decision in the hotfile case, because it could impact huge portions of their services. Which is also why your comment that "Statements like yours proves that they are winning by a large margin and it is very frustrating" is so apropos of nothing as a response to anything I said, unless you really are nitpicking over the implied-not-explicit "copyrighted content for which you do not hold copyrights" clause.
Good thing the average woman in society - size 12-14, and medically considered overweight - bears little resemblance to that woman, then.
If you think that woman looks anorexic, I submit that you've never seen a real person suffering from anorexia. The woman you're referring to is certainly slender, but doesn't appear to be suffering from anorexia in any way. In fact, you can see in her shoulders and legs that she has plenty of visible muscle mass - something you're not likely to see in someone suffering from anorexia.
Do yourself a favor and go look up some images of real people with anorexia sometime - you do them a tremendous disservice by describing that woman as "anorexic."
Numerous occasions in the past three years, in fact. Do us all a favor, and go educate yourself, instead of being a dipshit with a half-assed political agenda.
Fact: Overly conservative parents object to books that they consider "pornographic" or "anti-religious." (see: Ender's Game)
Fact: Overly liberal parents object to books that they consider too "racist" or "insensitive." (see: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)
If you actually care to read a fairly nuanced essay about book censorship, you could start here. Then you could stop pretending that there's any difference between overly protective 'conservative' parents and overly protective 'liberal' parents when it comes to their children reading material that goes against the orthodoxy those children are being taught at home.
And they'd be even bigger money sinks if suddenly Google had to shut them down, or start paying fines, based on vague assertions by RIAA/MPAA and similar organizations about copyrighted material being uploaded to those sites. And Youtube at least was on track to be profitable by late 2010 or early 2011, last I heard. Google has spent quite a bit of time working ads into that service.
No, it cannot be argued that they are operating these services out of altruistic principle, at least not with a straight face. If they only cared about the users, they'd offer ad-free versions of their services for a fee as an option, and they'd allow you to opt out of tracking - both things that would benefit users, but not Google. Instead you get the "benefit" of free services, in return for which you allow Google an ever-increasing view into your online activities, which it in turn uses as the basis for its advertising product. The *best* you could argue is that Google has a symbiotic relationship with its users, and I think it's possible to make a fairly good case for it being harmful (and thus parasitic) to the users.
Which is precisely what I said, and why I said it: "It's cool that Google is advocating for this, but make no mistake: filing this brief is also serving their own interests." I never said "they're just as evil as the RIAA or MPAA for doing it." I don't think they truly care about the user, I think they're motivated to do this simply because it could set very dangerous legal precedents if the court decides in favor of the copyright holders. That doesn't mean there aren't ancillary benefits to the users as a result of them taking this stance, it simply means that I don't believe that those benefits are their primary motivation.
http://www.youtube.com/
http://picasa.google.com/
http://plus.google.com/
Three enough?
Ah hell, I'll throw one more in for free: Google Music (specifically, the "locker" feature) - remember, they never got official signoff from the labels that the music locker service was legit and they were okay with it. Labels could still go after Google for that service, though it's not clear that they'd actually win.
You don't think Google is *intensely* interested in the outcome of cases regarding uploads of copyrighted materials to online sharing services, given that they own & operate sites intended for sharing, and which can - easily & trivially - be used to share copyrighted content?
It's cool that Google is advocating for this, but make no mistake: filing this brief is also serving their own interests.
Probably not that much - they're not incredibly large, I'm sure a bit of engineering work would allow them to be mounted safely on a mid-size boat.
This is pretty much what was meant by the firewalls comment: not that you have to set inflexible work hours, but that you should make an effort to make a clear distinction and separation between the two.