The problem with that is attention span. A lot of people, if they can't keep their minds occupied by external actions or stimuli (such as taking notes), will lose track of an hour or 90-minute lecture, remember little, and think about completely irrelevant things. Not everyone can just listen and think for that period.
I don't know. Every site I've seen with objectionable content has a disclaimer: "if you are in an area where viewing such content is prohibited, don't view it." In other words, the legal gotchas are already there.
Besides, a lot of these things are illegal in other countries. Hell, the discussion we're having now would be illegal to read in some countries. You don't worry about being put before a UN tribunal for it, do you?
But how is something viewed in private, acquired discreetly, causing offence to the community? It would be different if someone were running a business selling these items locally, but why is "obscenity," at the demand side, an issue, even in so far as to be about free speech? The people making the "speech," or expression, are within another jurisdiction, and whatever free speech issues there should be are there. Hearing speech, even obscene speech, should never be a crime.
Of course, child pornography and such is a different animal, since you're dealing with people who abuse children - even if they're across state lines, that's different from "unprotected" speech.
The question is how long they will be capable of maintaining their OEM agreements. If the brands drop Windows, assuming that more people understand Linux, the manufacturers can price gouge their Linux machines without anyone realizing, since they'll still be cheaper.
How much money does it really save to withold e-mail accounts? I can't imagine it would be much.
Either way, though, using government e-mail accounts for non-government purposes sounds like a security risk.
I'm sorry, but that simply isn't true. There are any number of quite nasty Bush parody sites that can be found from American servers, and they haven't been shut down yet. If one of them were to be shut down, the others would cry bloody murder; if they were all shut down, there are enough that God knows their absence would be noticed.
I'm no fan of Bush, but if a lot of the charges against him were true, they wouldn't have been said in the first place.
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So the FBI was wiser than we thought in withholding e-mail accounts...
The problem with that is attention span. A lot of people, if they can't keep their minds occupied by external actions or stimuli (such as taking notes), will lose track of an hour or 90-minute lecture, remember little, and think about completely irrelevant things. Not everyone can just listen and think for that period.
I don't know. Every site I've seen with objectionable content has a disclaimer: "if you are in an area where viewing such content is prohibited, don't view it." In other words, the legal gotchas are already there. Besides, a lot of these things are illegal in other countries. Hell, the discussion we're having now would be illegal to read in some countries. You don't worry about being put before a UN tribunal for it, do you?
It's that which causes offence to the community.
But how is something viewed in private, acquired discreetly, causing offence to the community? It would be different if someone were running a business selling these items locally, but why is "obscenity," at the demand side, an issue, even in so far as to be about free speech? The people making the "speech," or expression, are within another jurisdiction, and whatever free speech issues there should be are there. Hearing speech, even obscene speech, should never be a crime.
Of course, child pornography and such is a different animal, since you're dealing with people who abuse children - even if they're across state lines, that's different from "unprotected" speech.
The question is how long they will be capable of maintaining their OEM agreements. If the brands drop Windows, assuming that more people understand Linux, the manufacturers can price gouge their Linux machines without anyone realizing, since they'll still be cheaper.
How much money does it really save to withold e-mail accounts? I can't imagine it would be much. Either way, though, using government e-mail accounts for non-government purposes sounds like a security risk.
I'm sorry, but that simply isn't true. There are any number of quite nasty Bush parody sites that can be found from American servers, and they haven't been shut down yet. If one of them were to be shut down, the others would cry bloody murder; if they were all shut down, there are enough that God knows their absence would be noticed. I'm no fan of Bush, but if a lot of the charges against him were true, they wouldn't have been said in the first place.