The US doesn't really "control" the Internet; instead, other nations choose to use the same conventions as the US--for now. If the US screws up on governance, the rest of the world can create its own system. Furthermore, the transition to such a system could be done fairly quickly and with backwards compatibility.
Yes, I know this is Slashdot... but do people really have this kind of attitude about journalism these days, that they would rather see some guy rattle off a rant in a blog post than read a story in the New York Times?
The NYT is a media company with more than $3bn annual revenues. Its journalists are highly paid with clear career goals and incentives. You're naive if you think you get any kind of accurate reporting from that kind of institution, and it shows in their selective and biased reporting.
In the long term, hopefully, companies like the NYT will disappear entirely and be replaced by networks of nonprofits, part time reporters, and volunteers. And, yes, I very much prefer that sort of reporting to what the NYT publishes.
I mean, with all the quality control, detailed background search, and preservation of journalistic ethics that goes into their work, they just don't have any time anymore to actually write their own stories. And that's not even taking into account all the time that those poor, overworked journalists have to invest in being talking heads on various television shows and "news" programs, all the hors-d'oeuvres they have to consume at Washington and New York parties with important people, and all the fake book reviews they have to write for their own books on Amazon.
Well, no, the protocol doesn't support it directly, although the client/server nature makes it easier to implement than systems in which the application and the window system share a lot of data structures in memory.
In any case, there are proxies and some X11 servers that already enable this for most X applications, and, as you observe, it could be integrated into the toolkit.
Nature seems to want to publish stuff in computer science, but it is becoming increasing clear that they simply have no clue what they are doing. Apparently, they select papers that take some idea from computer science, add some biological or physics jargon, and otherwise fit their format, and publish it.
It seems more and more like Nature is turning into the New Scientist, only Nature isn't as entertaining.
B5 was fun and entertaining, but I wouldn't hold it up as an example of great writing. I think in the end, the show was just taking itself too seriously, and I could never quite shake the suspicion that JMS seriously believed that he was conveying some profound philosophical message with B5.
Overall, I view Macromedia and Adobe as fairly similar: some fairly good stuff, some bad stuff, some openness, and a lot of proprietary stuff.
I think both Adobe and Macromedia are getting squeezed out of the market anyway: open formats and changes in technology are eating into their market from one side, and Microsoft is threatening them from the other. Flash is likely going to disappear altogether over the next decade, and PDF will probably be created entirely with non-Adobe tools, many of them free.
L.E. owns 25% of a company; this means that 25% of every payment to the company will therefore, in effect, go to L.E. The other 75% of the company's owners are supposed to receive $100m a penalty for wrongdoing by L.E. How much money must L.E. pay to the company so that the other 75% of the owners receive their $100m?
Apparently, the court found this little problem too hard to solve.
And how is this different from any other web site or medium? If I libel you here, I can also repeat the same thing tomorrow under a different account name.
I don't think he should have to monitor his entry every day to make sure nobody is libeling him. It seems more reasonable to just hold people accountable for the behavior in the first place.
No, that's not reasonable. The reasonable thing is for people to actually start using their brains. An anonymous statement without evidence on a web site should never count as libel because only a complete moron would mistake it for a credible statement of fact.
I have had DSL, cable, and several forms of fixed wireless, in half a dozen different locations, ranging from 1 Mbps to around 20 Mbps, and none of them had download limits. They were all heavily used. None of the plans cost more than $40/month.
Plans with download limits clearly do exist somewhere, but it looks to me like they are on their way out.
I think we largely agree on the issues and also our view of Mr. Seigenthaler.
I would question, however, whether anything on Wikipedia could ever be libelous. The way it's being created, it's always a work in progress, and I think you shouldn't be able to sue someone for libel in a collaborative work in progress, in particular if you yourself have the ability to correct the statements.
Accusing people of involvement in the murder of their friends will make people extremely angry, angry in a way many of the lamers here just don't seem to understand. "Indignant" doesn't begin to cover it.
The article didn't accuse him, the article says that some people briefly thought he might have been.
He's an intelligent enough man to recognize libel. Contrary to popular belief here on Slashdot, nothing about the First Amendment requires him to ignore that. Why would he?
Apparently he is not intelligent enough to recognize libel. First, it's difficult to see how the text itself could be construed as libel. Second, Wikipedia is a work in progress, not a definitive statement of fact, and he has the ability to participate.
Quite apart from any legal issues, with his background, he has a special duty to respond responsibly and sensitively in free speech issues. Yet, his reaction is "haul them into court".
I think Seigenthaler did a lot more damage to his credibility and reputation with his reaction to this than any unverifiable anonymous claim ever could. I, at least, won't take the guy seriously as an advocate of free speech anymore after this.
Yeah, but when faced with actual freedom of speech, he apparently turns into a typical member of the Washington power elite, trying to haul people into court.
I think the nature of his remarks raise questions about his record. I'm left wondering whether he really just pursued freedom of speech issues because it was a convenient bandwagon to power and fame.
The fact that WikiPedia can be used in such a manner, terribly diminishes the worth of WikiPedia's articles.
Wikipedia's worth is simply determined by its usage, no more and no less. And apparently, enough people use it for Mr. Seigenthaler to worry about what is says about him.
How do you know an article that is based on fact vs. an article that is based on vindictiveness?
Whatever gave you the idea that everything you read is based on fact? Do you seriously believe that everything the Bush administration publishes is based on fact? That everything in the EB is based on fact? That everything in your textbooks is based on fact? That everything in the newspaper is based on fact? Do you make a habit out of believing accusations against people without evidence? How naive can you be?
The problem isn't with the Wikipedia. The Wikipedia is completely honest about what it is.
The problem is that people like Seigenthaler and you need to grow up yourself and stop nurturing the illusion that publication is some kind of quality control. Start using your head and start asking for evidence, for whatever claims you hear.
As for Mr. Seigenthaler and his little problem: the Wikipedia provides the means for him to correct those issues he feels inaccurate. If the original author is still around, they can hash it out on the discussion page. Maybe one side or the other will provide some evidence to support the accusation or the defense. That's all there's to it. But, as he told us, he isn't interested in correcting the information, he is interested in dragging the original author in front of a court, and I'm sorry, that kind of powerplay just doesn't work anymore in the 21st century.
Mr. Seigenthaler, you feel kind of helpless when the power elite that you used to be part of doesn't control information anymore, don't you? And it is characteristic that your first reaction is for the government to come down on people who say something bad about you.
Mr. Seigenthaler, it's the 21st century. Anybody can write anything about anybody else anonymously and expose that to several hundred million Internet users. You may think that this is a bad thing. I think it's a good thing. Either way, it's not going to go away. Get used to it. Or don't. It's not you but younger generations that will be living with it.
As for Wikipedia, it is only distinguished by its reputation. That is, on the whole, people find it informative and accurate enough to be useful and interesting. I doubt that the article about you is going to affect that either way, whether it is accurate or not.
Just do what other people do and follow the regular dispute procedures on Wikipedia, and stop behaving like a Washington insider and butthead.
This is why you need one-time credit card numbers. Several banks offer them. You generate them on-line as needed, with a precise limit and timeframe, and you can even revoke them if they haven't been charged.
The only thing devastating I see happening is all economic. Loss of property and/or property value in some parts of the world and probably an equal amount of increase in property and property value in other parts.
Boy, you are naive. Failing crops may be "just" an economic problem, but that problem is quickly followed by dying people. A rise in sea levels may not kill people, but it will make about half the world's population homeless.
Slashdot Mirror
The US doesn't really "control" the Internet; instead, other nations choose to use the same conventions as the US--for now. If the US screws up on governance, the rest of the world can create its own system. Furthermore, the transition to such a system could be done fairly quickly and with backwards compatibility.
Is it just me, or does the "petunia skylight" have vaguely anatomical connotations?
Yes, I know this is Slashdot ... but do people really have this kind of attitude about journalism these days, that they would rather see some guy rattle off a rant in a blog post than read a story in the New York Times?
The NYT is a media company with more than $3bn annual revenues. Its journalists are highly paid with clear career goals and incentives. You're naive if you think you get any kind of accurate reporting from that kind of institution, and it shows in their selective and biased reporting.
In the long term, hopefully, companies like the NYT will disappear entirely and be replaced by networks of nonprofits, part time reporters, and volunteers. And, yes, I very much prefer that sort of reporting to what the NYT publishes.
I mean, with all the quality control, detailed background search, and preservation of journalistic ethics that goes into their work, they just don't have any time anymore to actually write their own stories. And that's not even taking into account all the time that those poor, overworked journalists have to invest in being talking heads on various television shows and "news" programs, all the hors-d'oeuvres they have to consume at Washington and New York parties with important people, and all the fake book reviews they have to write for their own books on Amazon.
but the people investing their money in this company are clear examples of natural stupidity.
Well, no, the protocol doesn't support it directly, although the client/server nature makes it easier to implement than systems in which the application and the window system share a lot of data structures in memory.
In any case, there are proxies and some X11 servers that already enable this for most X applications, and, as you observe, it could be integrated into the toolkit.
That idea is very, very old.
Nature seems to want to publish stuff in computer science, but it is becoming increasing clear that they simply have no clue what they are doing. Apparently, they select papers that take some idea from computer science, add some biological or physics jargon, and otherwise fit their format, and publish it.
It seems more and more like Nature is turning into the New Scientist, only Nature isn't as entertaining.
X11 supports that; Gnome and KDE don't out of the box, although there are some add-ons that make it possible.
B5 was fun and entertaining, but I wouldn't hold it up as an example of great writing. I think in the end, the show was just taking itself too seriously, and I could never quite shake the suspicion that JMS seriously believed that he was conveying some profound philosophical message with B5.
Overall, I view Macromedia and Adobe as fairly similar: some fairly good stuff, some bad stuff, some openness, and a lot of proprietary stuff.
I think both Adobe and Macromedia are getting squeezed out of the market anyway: open formats and changes in technology are eating into their market from one side, and Microsoft is threatening them from the other. Flash is likely going to disappear altogether over the next decade, and PDF will probably be created entirely with non-Adobe tools, many of them free.
L.E. owns 25% of a company; this means that 25% of every payment to the company will therefore, in effect, go to L.E. The other 75% of the company's owners are supposed to receive $100m a penalty for wrongdoing by L.E. How much money must L.E. pay to the company so that the other 75% of the owners receive their $100m?
Apparently, the court found this little problem too hard to solve.
(or possibly another provider willing to pay for some of the backbone cost).
Both clients and servers are paying for their share of the bandwidth already; why do they need to pay again?
Uh, no. Entries can be "disputed" and they can be "locked".
Evolution and Thunderbird are the obvious choices. There is also mutt and pine for special requirements.
the libel can reappear the next day.
And how is this different from any other web site or medium? If I libel you here, I can also repeat the same thing tomorrow under a different account name.
I don't think he should have to monitor his entry every day to make sure nobody is libeling him. It seems more reasonable to just hold people accountable for the behavior in the first place.
No, that's not reasonable. The reasonable thing is for people to actually start using their brains. An anonymous statement without evidence on a web site should never count as libel because only a complete moron would mistake it for a credible statement of fact.
Studio makes a new hit movie, and now someone else is redistributing it for free without paying the actors or producers a dime.
Yes, that would end Hollywood as we know it. Where exactly do you see the problem?
You do know that most of the great art, literature, and acting happened before copyright even existed, right?
Whatever its purpose, many GPL proponents would be willing to take that deal.
Of course, specific uses (such as voting machines, banking systems, etc.) could still be required to be open sourced.
I have had DSL, cable, and several forms of fixed wireless, in half a dozen different locations, ranging from 1 Mbps to around 20 Mbps, and none of them had download limits. They were all heavily used. None of the plans cost more than $40/month.
Plans with download limits clearly do exist somewhere, but it looks to me like they are on their way out.
I think we largely agree on the issues and also our view of Mr. Seigenthaler.
I would question, however, whether anything on Wikipedia could ever be libelous. The way it's being created, it's always a work in progress, and I think you shouldn't be able to sue someone for libel in a collaborative work in progress, in particular if you yourself have the ability to correct the statements.
Accusing people of involvement in the murder of their friends will make people extremely angry, angry in a way many of the lamers here just don't seem to understand. "Indignant" doesn't begin to cover it.
The article didn't accuse him, the article says that some people briefly thought he might have been.
He's an intelligent enough man to recognize libel. Contrary to popular belief here on Slashdot, nothing about the First Amendment requires him to ignore that. Why would he?
Apparently he is not intelligent enough to recognize libel. First, it's difficult to see how the text itself could be construed as libel. Second, Wikipedia is a work in progress, not a definitive statement of fact, and he has the ability to participate.
Quite apart from any legal issues, with his background, he has a special duty to respond responsibly and sensitively in free speech issues. Yet, his reaction is "haul them into court".
I think Seigenthaler did a lot more damage to his credibility and reputation with his reaction to this than any unverifiable anonymous claim ever could. I, at least, won't take the guy seriously as an advocate of free speech anymore after this.
Yeah, but when faced with actual freedom of speech, he apparently turns into a typical member of the Washington power elite, trying to haul people into court.
I think the nature of his remarks raise questions about his record. I'm left wondering whether he really just pursued freedom of speech issues because it was a convenient bandwagon to power and fame.
The fact that WikiPedia can be used in such a manner, terribly diminishes the worth of WikiPedia's articles.
Wikipedia's worth is simply determined by its usage, no more and no less. And apparently, enough people use it for Mr. Seigenthaler to worry about what is says about him.
How do you know an article that is based on fact vs. an article that is based on vindictiveness?
Whatever gave you the idea that everything you read is based on fact? Do you seriously believe that everything the Bush administration publishes is based on fact? That everything in the EB is based on fact? That everything in your textbooks is based on fact? That everything in the newspaper is based on fact? Do you make a habit out of believing accusations against people without evidence? How naive can you be?
The problem isn't with the Wikipedia. The Wikipedia is completely honest about what it is.
The problem is that people like Seigenthaler and you need to grow up yourself and stop nurturing the illusion that publication is some kind of quality control. Start using your head and start asking for evidence, for whatever claims you hear.
As for Mr. Seigenthaler and his little problem: the Wikipedia provides the means for him to correct those issues he feels inaccurate. If the original author is still around, they can hash it out on the discussion page. Maybe one side or the other will provide some evidence to support the accusation or the defense. That's all there's to it. But, as he told us, he isn't interested in correcting the information, he is interested in dragging the original author in front of a court, and I'm sorry, that kind of powerplay just doesn't work anymore in the 21st century.
Mr. Seigenthaler, you feel kind of helpless when the power elite that you used to be part of doesn't control information anymore, don't you? And it is characteristic that your first reaction is for the government to come down on people who say something bad about you.
Mr. Seigenthaler, it's the 21st century. Anybody can write anything about anybody else anonymously and expose that to several hundred million Internet users. You may think that this is a bad thing. I think it's a good thing. Either way, it's not going to go away. Get used to it. Or don't. It's not you but younger generations that will be living with it.
As for Wikipedia, it is only distinguished by its reputation. That is, on the whole, people find it informative and accurate enough to be useful and interesting. I doubt that the article about you is going to affect that either way, whether it is accurate or not.
Just do what other people do and follow the regular dispute procedures on Wikipedia, and stop behaving like a Washington insider and butthead.
This is why you need one-time credit card numbers. Several banks offer them. You generate them on-line as needed, with a precise limit and timeframe, and you can even revoke them if they haven't been charged.
The only thing devastating I see happening is all economic. Loss of property and/or property value in some parts of the world and probably an equal amount of increase in property and property value in other parts.
Boy, you are naive. Failing crops may be "just" an economic problem, but that problem is quickly followed by dying people. A rise in sea levels may not kill people, but it will make about half the world's population homeless.