Funny that he makes these remarks on television, the medium responsible for "reality" tv, and for Fox, no less, the corporation responsible for the worst of it. I read an article last year in the "Life, etc." section of my local paper that talked about how Americans go out and mingle with their friends disturbingly less often than in the past. After reading this well-thought out piece, my eyes wandered to the bottom of the page, where I saw an infobox entitled What to Watch, which listed the latest in reality tv. We sit at home on our fat asses watching other people live lives that we wish we could have... if only we'd get up and leave the couch. I've posted a long tirade about it here.
I think, though, that in cases such as this, the rules of a public forum should apply: just because people aren't physically present doesn't mean that the discussion isn't "oral" in nature. Orality is part of a given existential situation, with responses shaped by the statements of other participants. "Textuality" implies forethought, consideration, planning, and then writing in an abstract form: you're writing for an audience that you don't assume you'll ever meet. In this case, laws based on print should not apply because the rhetorical situation, while public, is oral.
Just because e-mail isn't defined by legal statute doesn't mean that this judge was wrong: e-mail does have an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, which is generally recognized as the lexicographic index to the English language.
e-mail (noun):
1. messages distributed by electronic means from one computer user to one or more recipients via a network
2. the system of sending messages by such electronic means
(verb)
3. To send such a message or use such a system.
That sort of definition would almost have to include IMs and messages posted to a message board or newsgroup, wouldn't it?
Nobody will expect... the Spanish Inquisition... I know, no beheadings, but thumbscrews, the rack, drowning, all in a day's work. Look to the Puritans in our own country: no beheadings, but they were the first to use germ warfare on the North American continent, giving smallpox infested blankets to a Wampanoag village in 1637, then moving into their town (with its conveniently plowed & planted fields) once the natives were dead. You don't have to learn Latin for this one, sonny Jim: Mather the elder gave special thanks in a public address: "The good hand of God favoured our beginnings in sweeping away the multitudes of the Natives by the small pox." Loving, Christian God, that, no?
I think that the whole discussion (and article, if you want to think about it) misses a very large point - probably because of the audience. We're all talking about a permanently available digital format, because that's what we've trained ourselves to do. But even with this mindset, most people I know never have only one, or even two copies. Important documents are backed up to another hard drive, a cd, a DVD, sure, but even then, don't most of us hang on to the most important documents in hardcopy? I know the government does: they're bitching about data loss in transmission; however, even if it's inconvenient, they have hard copies of most artifacts such as blueprints, etc. How many of you keep only digital copies of your tax returns, knowing that if, four years from now, the IRS audits you and you have multiple storage failures/losses, etc., that you're screwed?
Mod parent up. The most interesting aspect of history - one that's never taught in high school - is that it is a constructed narrative: the writings and accounts of several pieced into varying "histories." American high schools teach history as frozen in time, according to the same revisionist history that they were taught fifty years ago: Columbus, "Injuns," Pilgrims, the whole nine yards.
I recently finished writing an essay about political weblogs for a collection about genre theory and the web, and one of the most important exigencies (reasons for writing) that I found after exhaustive narrative and discourse analysis was the need to be involved. The MSM frustrates political bloggers because it acts as a culturally accepted regulator of public discourse: an editorial board (controlled by a corporation) can deny access to opinions or questions it finds unacceptable. This conflicts with a socially ingrained belief - instilled in citizens of any democratic or republican form of government from early grade school through young adulthood - that each citizen has the right and the privilege to enter into a public debate. Thus, those denied access who feel a need to participate in public life will blog, which they know offers them a chance - however slim - that someone, somewhere, will read their opinion.
They're right to do so. Politicians have, for too long, been shielded by a mainstream media that is unwilling to go too far because the corporations controlling them don't want to be denied access to any future "behind the scenes" interviews or juicy bits of gossip. This has given pols the sense that everyone with a criticism must have a suggestion for an alternative, and must state it in carefully controlled language. Blair's statement is a case in point: you can't criticize us unless you're polite about it and can suggest a reasoned alternative.
This belief is illogical, and stems from the increasing phenomenon of the "punditocracy," that group of reporters who feel that they're experts about everything: public debate involves give and take, and the job of a critic is to examine and report, whether the report is positive or negative is determined by the potentials and effects of the policy. The public does not create policy, it hires politicians (think of the root words) to do so; however, like any employer, the public does have the responsibility to ensure that its employees (politicians) are doing their jobs according to company (public, national) standards. If the employee does poorly, he or she receives criticism: "do your job or we'll find someone else."
Somewhere along the line, though, this idea of politicians as public employees was lost. Again, the corporate media, with its fear that it might lose a scoop, panders to the concept of the powerful (congressman, senator, president, governor, legislator) individual who determines a course of action. Longtime politicians, or even worse, those who were born into political families, often forget that their first responsibility is to those they represent because of this pandering. For too long, there were no alternatives, and this alternative just happens to allow any nutcase with computer access to enter the public sphere, an idea that is completely contrary to long-held political beliefs developed through centuries of one-to-many (newspapers, television, etc.) media technology.
Eventually, though, we'll realize that even paper ballots are insecure: ballot stuffing, counterfeiting, etc. NO system is truly safe from fraud. There will always be someone (or ones) willing and able to find a way to cheat the system.
True, but until the development of the printing press, history was written by nobles or monks, who represented (at the time) a much lower percentage than that. Because of the "author"-ity of these individuals, nobody at the time either had the guts or literacy level to challenge their accounts of things, which have been called into question any number of times since the late 19th century introduced public schooling to the masses. Wikipedia offers a publicly negotiated account of a subject, and the collective nature of the Wiki's discussion provides, if not accuracy, an interesting cross-section of rhetorical practices. In short, troll, you couldn't ask for a better dataset for a study of public discourse, which is exactly what the article discusses.
The question was about "distribution." Distribution is not "retrieving," or "downloading." The site owner is distributing copyrighted material, you are stealing it.
Stallman, GNU, and the GPL are about freedom FOR. THE. USER. They always have been, and always will be. By definition, DRM is all about removing freedom from the USER, and therefore DRM is inherently incompatible with the GPL. Don't like it? Then you either don't like the GPL, or don't understand what the GPL is.
I have two problems with your line of reasoning:
1 - No piece of code is "inherently" anything but code. Code, by definition, is a set of commands subject to constraints. It is the use to which that code is put that gives it value.
2 - If the GPL and GNU licences are about "Freedom for the user," with software and source so licensed labeled free for all to use, then by definition, exclusion creates a contradiction. As soon as the GPL begins excluding end-users of any sort, it will subvert all of the meanings - explicit or implicit - that are associated with the "Open" source community. Any cultural caché that it has gained as being a software revolution will disappear: the OSS community will become what it supposedly grew to counter. If we're going to go on and on about "freedom" in any context, let's not be hypocritical.
In our present climate, it's impossible to avoid the appearance of bias. The word has, sadly, lost almost all meaning because of partisan wankers who use it as the default defense against one media outlet or another. "Bias," like any other broadly interpreted term in political contexts, is determined by the ideological lens through which the finger-pointers whine. By doing nothing, Google will be viewed by some (the objects of the Google-bombing) as "biased," because it did nothing to protect what they see as fair discursive practice: even if the algorithm is neutral, the uses to which it is put are not, and to Ma & Pa Kettle (remember: as a demographic, people over 50 vote more than the rest of us), who don't understand the Internet, when looking for information about politics, the appearance of neutrality is more important than actual, underlying neutrality.
On the other hand, if Google were to adjust its algorithm, or begin quashing "Google bombs," the free-speech squad would go nuts, claiming that Google's actions are quashing the freedom of expression of online lynch-mobs. The EFF would go to court. Slashdot's YRO section would be packed with cyberlibertarians bitching about censorship and bringing up the legendary, mythical (and fictional) "neutrality" of the Internet.
Yet Native American remnants - while not specifically tied to any particular individual - are accepted as cultural heritage and thus belong to the respective tribes. Why is this any different? Just because they are older remains does not mean that they don't belong to Egypt as a nation. I'm not trying to be difficult, just to raise a contextualizing situation.
Places like/. are the basis for these sorts of developments - user-moderated, information-recommendation boards that rank opinion and content based on a number of criteria. Although a number of boards like this one fail or become shills (ePinions), those that survive are models for social recommendation researchers. Discourse analysis is a peculiar human trait, one that computers cannot (yet) accurately perform because our communicative practices are situated in unique, perspective-based contexts, so I'll be interested to see what develops.
As a part of the abstract "THE ECONOMY," what happens here affects what happens in "meatspace." If economics is the study of resource allocation, then the most precious resource in the new "information" economy is not information; rather, it is attention. Physical commodities are abundant - so much so that you can't turn on a newscast without hearing someone bitching about rampant comsumerisn - what is lacking is the human attention needed to make sense of the constant barrage of information. The problem of speed derives from that: we haven't yet found a way to measure such allocations: you can't store attention in a warehouse. You need to continually attract the attention of Joe Consumer, who is distracted - sometimes frustrated - by the overwhelming abundance of similar companies vying for his attention, and therewith, his cash.
Last time, it was mostly companies going public. This time, it's companies heavily funded with venture capital, and the companies are then bought by other companies.
Actually, it was a bit of a mix of both - Take a look at Geert Lovink's Critical Internet Culture in Transition: venture capitalists fueled the IPO offerings.
btw, refferencing D&D in this is the wrong game, D&D was never said to be something that will ruin your life (unless hanging out with 5 other people on someone's house once or twice a week is a ruin...).
Where were you in the early 1980s? I remember reading stories about D&D ruining lives, causing teens to become homicidal maniacs, etc. - stories from the overprotective, underinvolved parenting crowd who wanted the government to raise their kids. It was just as much BS then as now.
While I agree with you overrated rewording of an outdated cliche, I'm obliged to quote Eddie Izzard: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people. But... the gun F&*%in helps."
Slashdot Mirror
Funny that he makes these remarks on television, the medium responsible for "reality" tv, and for Fox, no less, the corporation responsible for the worst of it. I read an article last year in the "Life, etc." section of my local paper that talked about how Americans go out and mingle with their friends disturbingly less often than in the past. After reading this well-thought out piece, my eyes wandered to the bottom of the page, where I saw an infobox entitled What to Watch, which listed the latest in reality tv. We sit at home on our fat asses watching other people live lives that we wish we could have... if only we'd get up and leave the couch. I've posted a long tirade about it here.
I think, though, that in cases such as this, the rules of a public forum should apply: just because people aren't physically present doesn't mean that the discussion isn't "oral" in nature. Orality is part of a given existential situation, with responses shaped by the statements of other participants. "Textuality" implies forethought, consideration, planning, and then writing in an abstract form: you're writing for an audience that you don't assume you'll ever meet. In this case, laws based on print should not apply because the rhetorical situation, while public, is oral.
Just because e-mail isn't defined by legal statute doesn't mean that this judge was wrong: e-mail does have an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, which is generally recognized as the lexicographic index to the English language.
That sort of definition would almost have to include IMs and messages posted to a message board or newsgroup, wouldn't it?Nobody will expect... the Spanish Inquisition... I know, no beheadings, but thumbscrews, the rack, drowning, all in a day's work. Look to the Puritans in our own country: no beheadings, but they were the first to use germ warfare on the North American continent, giving smallpox infested blankets to a Wampanoag village in 1637, then moving into their town (with its conveniently plowed & planted fields) once the natives were dead. You don't have to learn Latin for this one, sonny Jim: Mather the elder gave special thanks in a public address: "The good hand of God favoured our beginnings in sweeping away the multitudes of the Natives by the small pox." Loving, Christian God, that, no?
Who notices a typical CYA mentality here? Have the cake and eat it, too?
I think that the whole discussion (and article, if you want to think about it) misses a very large point - probably because of the audience. We're all talking about a permanently available digital format, because that's what we've trained ourselves to do. But even with this mindset, most people I know never have only one, or even two copies. Important documents are backed up to another hard drive, a cd, a DVD, sure, but even then, don't most of us hang on to the most important documents in hardcopy? I know the government does: they're bitching about data loss in transmission; however, even if it's inconvenient, they have hard copies of most artifacts such as blueprints, etc. How many of you keep only digital copies of your tax returns, knowing that if, four years from now, the IRS audits you and you have multiple storage failures/losses, etc., that you're screwed?
Mod parent up. The most interesting aspect of history - one that's never taught in high school - is that it is a constructed narrative: the writings and accounts of several pieced into varying "histories." American high schools teach history as frozen in time, according to the same revisionist history that they were taught fifty years ago: Columbus, "Injuns," Pilgrims, the whole nine yards.
I recently finished writing an essay about political weblogs for a collection about genre theory and the web, and one of the most important exigencies (reasons for writing) that I found after exhaustive narrative and discourse analysis was the need to be involved. The MSM frustrates political bloggers because it acts as a culturally accepted regulator of public discourse: an editorial board (controlled by a corporation) can deny access to opinions or questions it finds unacceptable. This conflicts with a socially ingrained belief - instilled in citizens of any democratic or republican form of government from early grade school through young adulthood - that each citizen has the right and the privilege to enter into a public debate. Thus, those denied access who feel a need to participate in public life will blog, which they know offers them a chance - however slim - that someone, somewhere, will read their opinion.
They're right to do so. Politicians have, for too long, been shielded by a mainstream media that is unwilling to go too far because the corporations controlling them don't want to be denied access to any future "behind the scenes" interviews or juicy bits of gossip. This has given pols the sense that everyone with a criticism must have a suggestion for an alternative, and must state it in carefully controlled language. Blair's statement is a case in point: you can't criticize us unless you're polite about it and can suggest a reasoned alternative.
This belief is illogical, and stems from the increasing phenomenon of the "punditocracy," that group of reporters who feel that they're experts about everything: public debate involves give and take, and the job of a critic is to examine and report, whether the report is positive or negative is determined by the potentials and effects of the policy. The public does not create policy, it hires politicians (think of the root words) to do so; however, like any employer, the public does have the responsibility to ensure that its employees (politicians) are doing their jobs according to company (public, national) standards. If the employee does poorly, he or she receives criticism: "do your job or we'll find someone else."
Somewhere along the line, though, this idea of politicians as public employees was lost. Again, the corporate media, with its fear that it might lose a scoop, panders to the concept of the powerful (congressman, senator, president, governor, legislator) individual who determines a course of action. Longtime politicians, or even worse, those who were born into political families, often forget that their first responsibility is to those they represent because of this pandering. For too long, there were no alternatives, and this alternative just happens to allow any nutcase with computer access to enter the public sphere, an idea that is completely contrary to long-held political beliefs developed through centuries of one-to-many (newspapers, television, etc.) media technology.
We've come out of hyperspace into a meteor shower...
Eventually, though, we'll realize that even paper ballots are insecure: ballot stuffing, counterfeiting, etc. NO system is truly safe from fraud. There will always be someone (or ones) willing and able to find a way to cheat the system.
True, but until the development of the printing press, history was written by nobles or monks, who represented (at the time) a much lower percentage than that. Because of the "author"-ity of these individuals, nobody at the time either had the guts or literacy level to challenge their accounts of things, which have been called into question any number of times since the late 19th century introduced public schooling to the masses. Wikipedia offers a publicly negotiated account of a subject, and the collective nature of the Wiki's discussion provides, if not accuracy, an interesting cross-section of rhetorical practices. In short, troll, you couldn't ask for a better dataset for a study of public discourse, which is exactly what the article discusses.
The question was about "distribution." Distribution is not "retrieving," or "downloading." The site owner is distributing copyrighted material, you are stealing it.
No. Making it available so that others may view/listen constitutes distribution.
I have two problems with your line of reasoning:
1 - No piece of code is "inherently" anything but code. Code, by definition, is a set of commands subject to constraints. It is the use to which that code is put that gives it value.
2 - If the GPL and GNU licences are about "Freedom for the user," with software and source so licensed labeled free for all to use, then by definition, exclusion creates a contradiction. As soon as the GPL begins excluding end-users of any sort, it will subvert all of the meanings - explicit or implicit - that are associated with the "Open" source community. Any cultural caché that it has gained as being a software revolution will disappear: the OSS community will become what it supposedly grew to counter. If we're going to go on and on about "freedom" in any context, let's not be hypocritical.
In our present climate, it's impossible to avoid the appearance of bias. The word has, sadly, lost almost all meaning because of partisan wankers who use it as the default defense against one media outlet or another. "Bias," like any other broadly interpreted term in political contexts, is determined by the ideological lens through which the finger-pointers whine. By doing nothing, Google will be viewed by some (the objects of the Google-bombing) as "biased," because it did nothing to protect what they see as fair discursive practice: even if the algorithm is neutral, the uses to which it is put are not, and to Ma & Pa Kettle (remember: as a demographic, people over 50 vote more than the rest of us), who don't understand the Internet, when looking for information about politics, the appearance of neutrality is more important than actual, underlying neutrality.
On the other hand, if Google were to adjust its algorithm, or begin quashing "Google bombs," the free-speech squad would go nuts, claiming that Google's actions are quashing the freedom of expression of online lynch-mobs. The EFF would go to court. Slashdot's YRO section would be packed with cyberlibertarians bitching about censorship and bringing up the legendary, mythical (and fictional) "neutrality" of the Internet.
What fun.
Yet Native American remnants - while not specifically tied to any particular individual - are accepted as cultural heritage and thus belong to the respective tribes. Why is this any different? Just because they are older remains does not mean that they don't belong to Egypt as a nation. I'm not trying to be difficult, just to raise a contextualizing situation.
Places like /. are the basis for these sorts of developments - user-moderated, information-recommendation boards that rank opinion and content based on a number of criteria. Although a number of boards like this one fail or become shills (ePinions), those that survive are models for social recommendation researchers. Discourse analysis is a peculiar human trait, one that computers cannot (yet) accurately perform because our communicative practices are situated in unique, perspective-based contexts, so I'll be interested to see what develops.
Good quote, but Jefferson was an American, this is a British political deal. He did plagiarize much of the declaration from Locke's work, though.
Let's also spell "laughingstock" as one word.
As a part of the abstract "THE ECONOMY," what happens here affects what happens in "meatspace." If economics is the study of resource allocation, then the most precious resource in the new "information" economy is not information; rather, it is attention. Physical commodities are abundant - so much so that you can't turn on a newscast without hearing someone bitching about rampant comsumerisn - what is lacking is the human attention needed to make sense of the constant barrage of information. The problem of speed derives from that: we haven't yet found a way to measure such allocations: you can't store attention in a warehouse. You need to continually attract the attention of Joe Consumer, who is distracted - sometimes frustrated - by the overwhelming abundance of similar companies vying for his attention, and therewith, his cash.
Oops. I meant "your." Lunchtime and one-handed typing, you know.
While I agree with you overrated rewording of an outdated cliche, I'm obliged to quote Eddie Izzard: "Guns don't kill people, people kill people. But... the gun F&*%in helps."
Much like Civilization, which I always discovered - for some reason - hiding in my "Games" folder right around finals time.