I still don't understand this attitude, but I can count myself (a Mac user) lucky as a consequence. If I were trying to profit from exploiting home PCs, I would target the Mac first and foremost, as the userbase is substantial (millions), demographically wealthy (compared to the whole market) and typically security-ignorant. That's a perfect storm for exploiting for profit, and I'm frankly astonished it hasn't happened on a large scale yet.
Since I don't own an iOS device (nor any other "mobile" device [since my laptop isn't mobile apparently]), can you or any other reader satisfy a curiosity of mine?
Obviously the jailbreaks use a number of vulnerable exploits to gain access; do they also board up the vulnerabilities when they're done? It seems to me that I would want to jailbreak on that basis alone if so, and refuse to use the platform if a known drive-by exploit is out in the wild otherwise.
Every time it's in their perceived interests, or the perceived interests of the state actor regardless of established policy. In other words, once in a while.
Okay so then WebM is dead in the water, so what would dropping H.264 accomplish other than make Chrome a less capable browser?
Don't get me wrong. I'd rather HTML5 video be royalty-free, and want Google to use their influence to help that happen. I just don't see how limiting Chrome's functionality in the present gets us there.
If your problem is that Google said one thing and (apparently) did another, I guess I couldn't care less given the details. If your problem is that Google is insufficiently supporting royalty-free HTML5 video, your work is still ahead of you in demonstrating that their commitment to drop H.264 would further that goal.
Or they're trying to plan a successful transition rather than a pointlessly principled one. Removing H.264 is a simple task, but it won't make the video files on the 'net magically come down the pipe in WebM format. Last I heard, YouTube is still in the process of converting existing content to WebM. You don't think they're going to just drop support for the biggest video site on principle are they? Like I said, even Mozilla is retreating here.
I'd much rather they take the time to get it right than not. If they switch now, WebM is almost certainly dead, and HTML5 video with it.
If they plan to renege on their announcement about H.264 in Chrome, it would seem that acquiring VP8 was an awful waste of money.
It might be that they're trying to plan a successful transition rather than a pointlessly principled one. It's worked so well for Mozilla that they're about to renege on their principles.
I really don't think it's as simple as that. While other OEMs are driven almost purely by the bottom line, Apple's bottom line is highly dependent on public perception. They have a reputation, and their brand is tied up in it. There's a reason that public pressure after This American Life aired Daisey's show convinced Apple to meet a demand that human rights and labor activists have been demanding for years: some form of accountability to their otherwise-sham "audits". This will actually make real changes (perhaps, even probably, not good enough). All the better that other OEMs have responded to Apple's growing market dominance by emulating Apple. They will have little choice but to adopt similar labor policies.
Is it enough? Almost certainly not. I personally won't settle for anything less than true equality between work forces. But it's a step, it's in the right direction, it will actually improve real lives, and it also creates an environment where the laws you're talking about might be more palatable to the businesses who—let's face it—already drive legislation.
It's easy to say "computer manufacturer bad!" and throw up our hands, not the least of which because it's true. But I don't think we should blink at any tactic that might improve working conditions at those factories. Even if that tactic is to manipulate a bad computer manufacturer to accept that it will profit from such improvements (which is also true). And even—as I've said in other comments—if it means taking creative approaches to raising public awareness and emotional investment in the topic.
All of that would be great, if people were simply criticizing him for "dramatizing" working conditions in China. But people aren't doing that. They're criticizing him for going on a national news show and representing his dramatization (and in cases, outright lies) as facts. You're defending him against the former, which does nothing to absolve him of the latter.
No, they're doing both, and using the latter to attack the former. That's why I'm making the distinction between what he has done wrong (misrepresent his role) and what he hasn't done wrong (dramatization). I'm concerned about the dramatization becoming a victim of an overly broad attack on the person, because the dramatization is powerful and important.
The fact that his show is "actually a dramatization, and dramatization is okay in creative activism," has no relevance to the fact (there's that word again) that he went on the national news, and delivered this dramatization as fact. He is to blame - and has stated as such - for not making it clear that his work was theatrical, not factual.
Agreed.
You say he has to "answer for misrepresenting his story," but in your very first post, you said, "Everyone involved here did their job, until it came to us." Now, unless his job description includes "portraying a dramatized monologue as journalistic fact," he did not do his job.
No, his job was dramatization, which he did, and did admirably. He also did something outside his job, and I called him on that. But the damage being done is the failure of the broader reactionary audience to make this distinction.
In fact (that word! again!) he appears to have gone to some effort to avoid having his stories fact checked
Which should have been a red flag to This American Life. And it was. Which is why they investigated further and publicly aired their findings.
instead of telling TAL "look, to be very clear, this is a dramatic monologue, not a journalistic story. I am trying to shed light on the atrocious working conditions in China by telling this story, and I have taken liberties with times and dates and places and companies. However, these abuses exist and are endemic to Chinese industry. If you'd care to report on the actual stories I'm using as my inspiration, then I'd love to help you build a piece that draws from all of those, and maybe spends 10 minutes talking about my work, and how it ties in."
That all sounds pretty reasonable.
I don't think we disagree much. Your argument isn't what I'm on about. It's the people who are disparaging his creative work because it isn't factually accurate—regardless of how he represented himself, essentially demanding that he be a journalist—that are doing harm to the exposure of the topic. You can read the other responses I've gotten and see that there is an attitude not to demand accountability for how he represented himself, but for how he framed the entire topic. And that attitude would have us dispense with all manner of—yes, I'll use the term again—creative activism, whether it be satire, political fiction, art or music.
The topic isn't Foxconn, the topic is the consequences of our demand for cheap electronics. He wove a tale of truths into a story, but those facts are real. The damage, as I said, is being done by a failure to distinguish.
And if his "creative" work involves "creating" facts that are reported on national news as facts, that's okay?
As I said in another response, it depends on the nature of the fabrication. For Mike Daisey to do some research and discover that workers are suffering n-hexane poisoning, then to claim that he met such a worker when he did not, is a lie about his activities but not about a salient fact. It's well within the range of behaviors we rightly expect in a dramatization.
And if Fox News decided to start calling Anne Coulter a "creative activist" - I mean, she writes books, that's creative! - you'd be okay with them reporting, "Anne Coulter says President Obama isn't even an American - he was born in Kenya, and he's a Muslim!" After all, she's creative, and an activist... TRUTH doesn't matter in the news, as long as it's for a "creative" cause, right?
To be honest, yes I would be okay with them reporting that quote—even if they don't call her a "creative activist". The quote doesn't make a claim to veracity, only a claim to repeat what another person said. This example is far from analogous, and no different from when they report what "an official" said—which is to say, it's a terrible substitute for journalism but it's not really that far out.
"That scene where you got the gun in the bank was staged!"
Well of course it was staged! It's a movie! We built the "bank" as a set and then I hired actors to play the bank tellers and the manager and we got a toy gun from the prop department and then I wrote some really cool dialogue for me and them to say! Pretty neat, huh?
Well gee, whiz! The thing that happened in his movie didn't really happen. Michael Moore is lying! (He goes on to explain that it's true, but I'd be quite fine with it having been staged. Because it's okay to dramatize an issue to make a point about a fact.)
It is the job of journalists to be factual and accurate and illuminating, to the best of their ability. But a creative person's job is different: to be compelling, and hopefully to be illuminating as well. Where Daisey screwed up (and I began my first response with this) was to be misrepresented as more of the former and less of the latter.
What you're calling pedantry is really just people calling you out for the ridiculous logical contortions you're twisting yourself into in order to justify Daisey's lies - presented as fact - "because they're activism for a good cause."
The logic I'm using isn't much of a contortion, it's quite simple. It's unreasonable to expect a dramatization to meet the same standards as journalism. It's not even just unreasonable either, our culture and our awareness would suffer for it. We need people to powerfully engage us on our choices. What we should expect from people like Daisey is that they make us care about the real truths in their stories; we don't need the stories to be accurate, so long as the topical substance is—and in this case it is.
They asked him for the contact info for the translator he used so they could corroborate his stories. He refused to provide that info. If you don't want your stories fact-checked, don't present them to the world as fact.
I agree that Daisey has to answer for misrepresenting his story to This American Life as a kind of journalism. That's why it was the first thing I said.
That sounds like how a Rick Santorum fan would justify his controversial views.
Really? Rick Santorum would blame himself and those on his side with failing to clearly articulate a strong analysis of a complex topic? I find that hard to believe, but I'm open to being educated. Show me.
Let's face it, lying to get people on your side is detestable
Depends what you're lying about and how you're lying. I'm just waiting for the scathing critique of the journalistic integrity of George Orwell because, did you know? The content in Nineteen Eighty-Four is not factually true!
and using euphemisms like "creative activist" in place of lying is doing him (and yourself) no favors.
I already clarified that: he is an activist who engages in creative work. I would use the same term for satirists, politically motivated novelists, a lot of folk musicians, and so on. The "lying" that he did was part of a dramatization; those of us who paid attention knew that when it aired, not just when This American Life retracted. Political theater always mixes truth with fiction. That's the nature of the genre.
A creative activist is an activist who does creative work in the course of their activism. I haven't posted on Slashdot for a while, I forgot what a lot of pedants you all are.
The difference it can make and has made is that Apple has consistently responded to pressure to be more open about its labor practices, and they have enough economic weight to throw around to make real (but perhaps not fundamental) change in at least their supply chain—which is substantial on its own—but even probably in the electronics market overall.
Apple doesn't necessarily need to leave Foxconn (or any other supplier) to make them change their labor policies; the pressure of audits with accountability can go a long way, under enough social pressure. And say what you want about Apple's fanatic following, it certainly exists, but it also has a demographic tendency to be more inclined to apply pressure on labor abuse.
While Daisey certainly needs to answer for misrepresenting himself (to This American Life), most of the damage that I've seen has been done by a poorly educated and reactionary audience that doesn't understand that it's unreasonable to hold a creative activist to the same journalistic standards that, quite frankly, we don't hold journalists to either. Like so many of the controversies on "our side" (and I'm assuming we have some sort of common cause if you think Foxconn acting with impunity is harmful), we have a role that as a whole we simply aren't prepared—in mind or in temperament—to execute.
Everyone involved here did their job, until it came to us. Mike Daisey's job was to prepare a piece that formulated a story from truths that would make an audience care passionately about those truths, thereby pressuring the actors involved. This American Life checked facts and disputed those it found questionable or inaccurate. We did not articulate, with clarity and principle, articulate the above.
It's too easy to say that one guy with a stage performance did so much harm, just as it's too easy to say that he'd done so much good.
Re:Let's rename Gnome -- how bout GnOSXme?
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It doesn't always act as a plain click. If you cmd-click a link in a background Safari window, it'll open a new tab like a foreground cmd-click, for instance.
Yes, I would wait a week or two for it to fall off naturally, rather than pay for probably painful surgery and wait out probably painful recovery time of at least the same duration.
For example go hold a rally in the rotunda of your state capitol building, no problem. Now go do it at midnight. There are even public parks where you cannot be after hours.
I don't think this has been tested in court, and if it were I think it's obvious what the decision at the top would be.
Or classrooms in state schools.
This is obviously absurd. The schools are public spaces, and the courts have ruled in favor of children having all of the constitutional rights of adults.
As far as a precedent, there is the fundamental Millver v. California
Which is comically out of sync with the letter or spirit of 1A.
I believe it is a protected thing, mostly because I do not want to have any slippery slope.
I don't want one either, but is that a convincing argument? It's not for me.
I applaud the library for obviously being staunch supporters of the first amendment.
It's not clear to me that 1A is even relevant. Is it a speech act to consume pornography? The closest I can reason to that is the implicit (but not explicit) right to hear speech being integral to a thorough right to speech, but I have no idea if that would stand up.
All of that said, I think the guy is quite an asshole. Talking about no taste in public behavior.
Time, place, and manner. Long established restrictions on speech in public forums.
There are very, very specific restrictions, the most famous being the presentation of a "clear and present danger". Is there a specific precedent you can cite which would apply soundly to consuming pornography in public but wouldn't be comically out of sync with the letter or spirit of 1A?
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I still don't understand this attitude, but I can count myself (a Mac user) lucky as a consequence. If I were trying to profit from exploiting home PCs, I would target the Mac first and foremost, as the userbase is substantial (millions), demographically wealthy (compared to the whole market) and typically security-ignorant. That's a perfect storm for exploiting for profit, and I'm frankly astonished it hasn't happened on a large scale yet.
Since I don't own an iOS device (nor any other "mobile" device [since my laptop isn't mobile apparently]), can you or any other reader satisfy a curiosity of mine?
Obviously the jailbreaks use a number of vulnerable exploits to gain access; do they also board up the vulnerabilities when they're done? It seems to me that I would want to jailbreak on that basis alone if so, and refuse to use the platform if a known drive-by exploit is out in the wild otherwise.
Every time it's in their perceived interests, or the perceived interests of the state actor regardless of established policy. In other words, once in a while.
Okay so then WebM is dead in the water, so what would dropping H.264 accomplish other than make Chrome a less capable browser?
Don't get me wrong. I'd rather HTML5 video be royalty-free, and want Google to use their influence to help that happen. I just don't see how limiting Chrome's functionality in the present gets us there.
If your problem is that Google said one thing and (apparently) did another, I guess I couldn't care less given the details. If your problem is that Google is insufficiently supporting royalty-free HTML5 video, your work is still ahead of you in demonstrating that their commitment to drop H.264 would further that goal.
Or they're trying to plan a successful transition rather than a pointlessly principled one. Removing H.264 is a simple task, but it won't make the video files on the 'net magically come down the pipe in WebM format. Last I heard, YouTube is still in the process of converting existing content to WebM. You don't think they're going to just drop support for the biggest video site on principle are they? Like I said, even Mozilla is retreating here.
I'd much rather they take the time to get it right than not. If they switch now, WebM is almost certainly dead, and HTML5 video with it.
If they plan to renege on their announcement about H.264 in Chrome, it would seem that acquiring VP8 was an awful waste of money.
It might be that they're trying to plan a successful transition rather than a pointlessly principled one. It's worked so well for Mozilla that they're about to renege on their principles.
I really don't think it's as simple as that. While other OEMs are driven almost purely by the bottom line, Apple's bottom line is highly dependent on public perception. They have a reputation, and their brand is tied up in it. There's a reason that public pressure after This American Life aired Daisey's show convinced Apple to meet a demand that human rights and labor activists have been demanding for years: some form of accountability to their otherwise-sham "audits". This will actually make real changes (perhaps, even probably, not good enough). All the better that other OEMs have responded to Apple's growing market dominance by emulating Apple. They will have little choice but to adopt similar labor policies.
Is it enough? Almost certainly not. I personally won't settle for anything less than true equality between work forces. But it's a step, it's in the right direction, it will actually improve real lives, and it also creates an environment where the laws you're talking about might be more palatable to the businesses who—let's face it—already drive legislation.
It's easy to say "computer manufacturer bad!" and throw up our hands, not the least of which because it's true. But I don't think we should blink at any tactic that might improve working conditions at those factories. Even if that tactic is to manipulate a bad computer manufacturer to accept that it will profit from such improvements (which is also true). And even—as I've said in other comments—if it means taking creative approaches to raising public awareness and emotional investment in the topic.
All of that would be great, if people were simply criticizing him for "dramatizing" working conditions in China. But people aren't doing that. They're criticizing him for going on a national news show and representing his dramatization (and in cases, outright lies) as facts. You're defending him against the former, which does nothing to absolve him of the latter.
No, they're doing both, and using the latter to attack the former. That's why I'm making the distinction between what he has done wrong (misrepresent his role) and what he hasn't done wrong (dramatization). I'm concerned about the dramatization becoming a victim of an overly broad attack on the person, because the dramatization is powerful and important.
The fact that his show is "actually a dramatization, and dramatization is okay in creative activism," has no relevance to the fact (there's that word again) that he went on the national news, and delivered this dramatization as fact. He is to blame - and has stated as such - for not making it clear that his work was theatrical, not factual.
Agreed.
You say he has to "answer for misrepresenting his story," but in your very first post, you said, "Everyone involved here did their job, until it came to us." Now, unless his job description includes "portraying a dramatized monologue as journalistic fact," he did not do his job.
No, his job was dramatization, which he did, and did admirably. He also did something outside his job, and I called him on that. But the damage being done is the failure of the broader reactionary audience to make this distinction.
In fact (that word! again!) he appears to have gone to some effort to avoid having his stories fact checked
Which should have been a red flag to This American Life. And it was. Which is why they investigated further and publicly aired their findings.
instead of telling TAL "look, to be very clear, this is a dramatic monologue, not a journalistic story. I am trying to shed light on the atrocious working conditions in China by telling this story, and I have taken liberties with times and dates and places and companies. However, these abuses exist and are endemic to Chinese industry. If you'd care to report on the actual stories I'm using as my inspiration, then I'd love to help you build a piece that draws from all of those, and maybe spends 10 minutes talking about my work, and how it ties in."
That all sounds pretty reasonable.
I don't think we disagree much. Your argument isn't what I'm on about. It's the people who are disparaging his creative work because it isn't factually accurate—regardless of how he represented himself, essentially demanding that he be a journalist—that are doing harm to the exposure of the topic. You can read the other responses I've gotten and see that there is an attitude not to demand accountability for how he represented himself, but for how he framed the entire topic. And that attitude would have us dispense with all manner of—yes, I'll use the term again—creative activism, whether it be satire, political fiction, art or music.
I hope this clears up my position for you.
That's why I called it activism, from the start.
The topic isn't Foxconn, the topic is the consequences of our demand for cheap electronics. He wove a tale of truths into a story, but those facts are real. The damage, as I said, is being done by a failure to distinguish.
I stand by what I said. The damage is being done, right here and now, by a failure to understand the difference between journalism and theater.
There's no such thing as a "creative activist".
Really? Well, what is a satirist? I suppose Stephen Colbert should be lambasted the same way. A political artist? There goes Picasso.
Daisey's damning dishonesty was in presenting himself to This American Life as something he's not. The content of his stage show isn't the problem.
And if his "creative" work involves "creating" facts that are reported on national news as facts, that's okay?
As I said in another response, it depends on the nature of the fabrication. For Mike Daisey to do some research and discover that workers are suffering n-hexane poisoning, then to claim that he met such a worker when he did not, is a lie about his activities but not about a salient fact. It's well within the range of behaviors we rightly expect in a dramatization.
And if Fox News decided to start calling Anne Coulter a "creative activist" - I mean, she writes books, that's creative! - you'd be okay with them reporting, "Anne Coulter says President Obama isn't even an American - he was born in Kenya, and he's a Muslim!" After all, she's creative, and an activist... TRUTH doesn't matter in the news, as long as it's for a "creative" cause, right?
To be honest, yes I would be okay with them reporting that quote—even if they don't call her a "creative activist". The quote doesn't make a claim to veracity, only a claim to repeat what another person said. This example is far from analogous, and no different from when they report what "an official" said—which is to say, it's a terrible substitute for journalism but it's not really that far out.
Here's a better example. Michael Moore has taken a lot of heat over the years for playing loose with the facts. Straight from the horse's mouth (source: http://michaelmoore.com/books-films/facts/bowling-columbine):
"That scene where you got the gun in the bank was staged!"
Well of course it was staged! It's a movie! We built the "bank" as a set and then I hired actors to play the bank tellers and the manager and we got a toy gun from the prop department and then I wrote some really cool dialogue for me and them to say! Pretty neat, huh?
Well gee, whiz! The thing that happened in his movie didn't really happen. Michael Moore is lying! (He goes on to explain that it's true, but I'd be quite fine with it having been staged. Because it's okay to dramatize an issue to make a point about a fact.)
It is the job of journalists to be factual and accurate and illuminating, to the best of their ability. But a creative person's job is different: to be compelling, and hopefully to be illuminating as well. Where Daisey screwed up (and I began my first response with this) was to be misrepresented as more of the former and less of the latter.
What you're calling pedantry is really just people calling you out for the ridiculous logical contortions you're twisting yourself into in order to justify Daisey's lies - presented as fact - "because they're activism for a good cause."
The logic I'm using isn't much of a contortion, it's quite simple. It's unreasonable to expect a dramatization to meet the same standards as journalism. It's not even just unreasonable either, our culture and our awareness would suffer for it. We need people to powerfully engage us on our choices. What we should expect from people like Daisey is that they make us care about the real truths in their stories; we don't need the stories to be accurate, so long as the topical substance is—and in this case it is.
They asked him for the contact info for the translator he used so they could corroborate his stories. He refused to provide that info. If you don't want your stories fact-checked, don't present them to the world as fact.
I agree that Daisey has to answer for misrepresenting his story to This American Life as a kind of journalism. That's why it was the first thing I said.
That sounds like how a Rick Santorum fan would justify his controversial views.
Really? Rick Santorum would blame himself and those on his side with failing to clearly articulate a strong analysis of a complex topic? I find that hard to believe, but I'm open to being educated. Show me.
Let's face it, lying to get people on your side is detestable
Depends what you're lying about and how you're lying. I'm just waiting for the scathing critique of the journalistic integrity of George Orwell because, did you know? The content in Nineteen Eighty-Four is not factually true!
and using euphemisms like "creative activist" in place of lying is doing him (and yourself) no favors.
I already clarified that: he is an activist who engages in creative work. I would use the same term for satirists, politically motivated novelists, a lot of folk musicians, and so on. The "lying" that he did was part of a dramatization; those of us who paid attention knew that when it aired, not just when This American Life retracted. Political theater always mixes truth with fiction. That's the nature of the genre.
A creative activist is an activist who does creative work in the course of their activism. I haven't posted on Slashdot for a while, I forgot what a lot of pedants you all are.
The stories, yes. The actual topics, no.
The difference it can make and has made is that Apple has consistently responded to pressure to be more open about its labor practices, and they have enough economic weight to throw around to make real (but perhaps not fundamental) change in at least their supply chain—which is substantial on its own—but even probably in the electronics market overall.
Apple doesn't necessarily need to leave Foxconn (or any other supplier) to make them change their labor policies; the pressure of audits with accountability can go a long way, under enough social pressure. And say what you want about Apple's fanatic following, it certainly exists, but it also has a demographic tendency to be more inclined to apply pressure on labor abuse.
While Daisey certainly needs to answer for misrepresenting himself (to This American Life), most of the damage that I've seen has been done by a poorly educated and reactionary audience that doesn't understand that it's unreasonable to hold a creative activist to the same journalistic standards that, quite frankly, we don't hold journalists to either. Like so many of the controversies on "our side" (and I'm assuming we have some sort of common cause if you think Foxconn acting with impunity is harmful), we have a role that as a whole we simply aren't prepared—in mind or in temperament—to execute.
Everyone involved here did their job, until it came to us. Mike Daisey's job was to prepare a piece that formulated a story from truths that would make an audience care passionately about those truths, thereby pressuring the actors involved. This American Life checked facts and disputed those it found questionable or inaccurate. We did not articulate, with clarity and principle, articulate the above.
It's too easy to say that one guy with a stage performance did so much harm, just as it's too easy to say that he'd done so much good.
It doesn't always act as a plain click. If you cmd-click a link in a background Safari window, it'll open a new tab like a foreground cmd-click, for instance.
No, it only spee-lchecks.
Yes, I would wait a week or two for it to fall off naturally, rather than pay for probably painful surgery and wait out probably painful recovery time of at least the same duration.
Skin cells die and fall off. It would only require surgery if you're incredibly impatient.
For example go hold a rally in the rotunda of your state capitol building, no problem. Now go do it at midnight. There are even public parks where you cannot be after hours.
I don't think this has been tested in court, and if it were I think it's obvious what the decision at the top would be.
Or classrooms in state schools.
This is obviously absurd. The schools are public spaces, and the courts have ruled in favor of children having all of the constitutional rights of adults.
As far as a precedent, there is the fundamental Millver v. California
Which is comically out of sync with the letter or spirit of 1A.
I believe it is a protected thing, mostly because I do not want to have any slippery slope.
I don't want one either, but is that a convincing argument? It's not for me.
I applaud the library for obviously being staunch supporters of the first amendment.
It's not clear to me that 1A is even relevant. Is it a speech act to consume pornography? The closest I can reason to that is the implicit (but not explicit) right to hear speech being integral to a thorough right to speech, but I have no idea if that would stand up.
All of that said, I think the guy is quite an asshole.
Talking about no taste in public behavior.
Very probably true.
Time, place, and manner. Long established restrictions on speech in public forums.
There are very, very specific restrictions, the most famous being the presentation of a "clear and present danger". Is there a specific precedent you can cite which would apply soundly to consuming pornography in public but wouldn't be comically out of sync with the letter or spirit of 1A?