I guess I should have been more clear when I referred to getting us out of a huge mess. The solution can't create a bigger mess, or else it really doesn't help anything. I really don't think that cutting off all the funding would solve the problem that is our occupation of Iraq. I shouldn't need to list all the ways that that could go wrong.
It'll be just like the Democrats "taking over congress". Tons of promises, but are we out of Iraq? No. Are there *any* legislative signs we're going to be? No. Do we have any relief from Bush's illegal wiretapping and "signing statements" and pandering to Haliburton and crew? No.
Since you decided to go with the typical criticism, I have to point out the typical response to that: they haven't even had control for 6 months! We've been in Iraq for about 4 years now, and you expect them to get us out of that huge mess within 6 months? The bigger the hole you dig, the longer it takes to get out.
Now I'm not saying that they are going to do any better, but it is entirely too early to come to any either way. And yes, I think there are signs that we will be getting out of Iraq sooner than if Congress was still controlled by the Republicans. I think they're at least trying to get us out, whereas before it seemed like they had no interest in ending this "conflict".
I hate to make another poor analogy, but you got me thinking with "Granted, the idea is you come in for coffee..." This case seems different from the other cases where someone is piggybacking off of another individual's wifi since the network is run by a store/business.
This makes me think of free samples at stores, like at Sam's Club. The samples are supposed to entice you so that you buy the product, but you don't have to buy it. They are a means to get customers to spend money. I'm not breaking any laws if I walk into Sam's (assuming I'm a member, but this applies to Wal-Marts and other stores that provide samples), take a sample from every table, and then walk right out. It seems to me that this wifi is similar since the store is giving it away for free. I guess the difference is that had he come in each day and used his computer without buying anything, someone probably would have noticed and asked him to buy something or banned him from the store, just like they would do if you took free samples everyday without buying anything. But if they left the free samples outside without anyone to monitor who took them... now we're getting closer.
I'm a fan of duct tape. Just tear off a little (as in, slightly larger than the LED) square or two and cover it up. This way you can remove it in the future as well. My only problem is that my monitor has an illuminated power button (so I can't really cover it in any way without losing the button) that flashes when the computer hibernates, so I have to turn my monitor off every night so it doesn't blink... which isn't a big deal but it's still a pretty stupid "feature" to have on a monitor.
This article just makes me laugh because it shows how some people don't understand what makes a "new" gaming system. Calling the Wii a "GameCube 1.5" because of graphics is just ignorant. Do these people really think that graphics power is the only thing that sets apart one system from another (rhetorical)? It explains a lot about why the Wii is doing so well compared to the other systems.
"Cheating bastard" is more than a little bit harsh, but yeah it's a lot closer than being a sissy. And yes, it's definitely nice to see a faker get called, which is the risk in faking... and part of the game.
If only you understood how penalties worked in soccer... Whether anyone likes it or not, "faking" is part of soccer. No one complains about a basketball player who "draws a foul," yet since many Americans don't understand how soccer fouls/penalties work, they see a player who "fakes" an injury as being a sissy. As hard as it is for some people to understand, it's part of the game.
BTW, I grew up in Illinois and have lived there all my life except for the two years I went to college in California before transferring to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. I've also played soccer in both club and school leagues since I was 8 years old, not to mention the other "American" sports I've been involved in over the years.
First off, thanks for saying Harvard has brand power as being one of the best universities and not that Harvard is one of the best universities.
With that said, you make a really good point in that people tend to listen more to things that appear to be special or great. If one of the lesser known but higher ranked law schools had a professor who said the same thing, this wouldn't have nearly as much of an effect. That's assuming that this actually has an effect, but here's to hoping.
I know Digg is--it's full of high school age readers who do nothing but download music and games all day while bashing the RIAA to justify it.
"And starwipe to camera 4"
But why do so many Slashdotters seem to be in favor of ripping off artists, programmers, writers, directors, and so forth?
"Fade in audience applause for the money shot in 3, 2, 1"
Or am I outnumbered by the freeloaders who contribute nothing back to the artistic community, furthering its descent into homogenization and sequel-itis as studios are forced to rely on tried-and-tested money-makers because piracy makes risky investments not worth the cost?
"And that's a wrap. Package that thing with the word extreme on the cover, some bright colors, and a stripper in a thong and the masses will snatch that right up. Can you believe we make money off this shit? All we have to do is rehash the same bullshit that worked last week. To think it doesn't even require an original thought. And with all the buzz words in there, they won't even notice all the logical flaws or plot holes!"
As far as I know, you're if you're saying that US copyright laws don't apply in China. However,
Disney is a company, one whose wishes are only enforced because some countries (eg. U.S., European countries) have agreed to use their police and border guards to enforce Disney's wishes.
Although there is some truth to that, it's neglecting a lot of other relavent information. When companies get angry about stuff that is happening in other countries, they go to their government and complain. Some companies have more pull than others, and if enough companies complain or the offenses are a little extreme, the government takes notice. If the offending country steps over some threshold, the government might take action, such as stopping trade.
Now, considering China supplies a lot to us and we do a lot in China, I don't think Disney is going to cause such an action, but China still has to be careful about what it's doing if it cares about relations with the US. Disney has other options as well, and although their movies don't show it, they could get pretty creative with ways to punish China. The point is, just because China is a country doesn't mean that Disney has no recourse.
Speaking of the president, why should Universities listen to Congress when the president doesn't seem to care what they think? And for that matter, what's Congress gonna do if the Universities don't respond? Send them a stern letter or hold a dinner party about it? I hate that there's some truth to those statements, even though they are just a tiny bit exagerrated.
Considering Disney has made a big deal about people getting tattoos of Disney characters, I can't imagine this will go over well. Actually, I didn't really believe it until I saw a couple other sources.
If they're told that these are rules, but you don't *really* have to obey them, what other rules will they choose to ignore? Will they ignore the rules about bringing weapons to school? Will they ignore the rules about bringing drugs to school? Will they chose to ignore the rules about cheating on tests?
Oh those damned slippery slopes...
But more to the point:
This isn't about the school district doing anything inappropriate. It's about kids doing something that they knew was inappropriate and being punished appropriately.
Ok, in the student handbook for the school where it talks about acceptable use of the school's network, the rules for appropriate use are
A student has access only through his/her student account.
The account is to be used only for identified educational purposes.
A student is held responsible at all times for the proper use of the account and the District may suspend or revoke the student's access for rule violations.
Remember that individuals who receive e-mail from a student with a school address might think the message represents the school's point of view.
No problems there, but under Inappropriate Uses, it has Damage to computers, computer systems or other computer networks including attempting to access systems to which the student has no authorization. This must be the part students are getting in trouble for, but is it really true? Are the students really hacking, or is that talking more about accessing teacher's computers or other information on the school's network? My point is that this seems to be one of those situations where students are getting in trouble because the school is ignorant of what they are doing.
This reminded me of a story I read (search for "librarian" to get the right one) where a student is told to shut down a computer by the librarian because he is using telnet instead of hotmail to check his email, which she basically didn't think was possible. Yes, you can do some malicious things with telnet. Yes, you can do some malicious things when you are behind another proxy. Yes, you can also do some malicious things when you are accessing just about any computer, but that doesn't mean that you are doing malicious things. Just because these kids used a proxy doesn't mean they are doing anything wrong. Hell, at some schools you'd have to do it just to read slashdot or wikipedia.
However, I don't think the school is to blame either. Why is anyone to blame here? Why can't you just tell the kids not to do it again or amend the policy and then leave it at that? What ever happened to warning kids and punishing them if they abuse the second chance? If the school is really concerned about this happening, then they need to protect their network better, but I don't think the kids are really to blame for using their tools to their full potential.
When you start talking about tons of mercury I will stand up and take note
It's not always about concentrations though. Consider regular baking flour. Drop a match in a bag of flour and nothing happens. Blow a cup of flour at a lit flame and you're going to see an explosion (but really, don't do that). Of course, flammability is different from toxicity, but size isn't what makes the difference.
Also, absorbing a substance through the skin is completely different from ingesting it or breathing it in. Even knowing that mercury is dangerous, I wouldn't be afraid to play with it a few times, but I sure as hell wouldn't drop a little in a glass of water and drink it.
Until the Internet becomes at LEAST as reliable as the good old fashioned phone, Internet applications will have no appeal to anyone who values reliability and accessibility to their data.
Exactly. If you're worried about losing your data, you need to protect it in some form or another. Leaving it in one place, whether that place is your hard drive (although as you said, RAID is a bit different) or on some company's server, is not a good way to protect your important data.
My fault, I didn't copy the whole second quote that I wanted. I was trying to point out that in your first post you basically said you didn't want responses that were based on a dislike for some political position, but in the second post you seemed to use politics to support your ideas. Regardless, that really isn't important.
I'm gonna pick at the "claiming to know what he thinks" part one more time....by implication of the language he used, he assumed that it would be clear that he was using a metaphor... To me, that's saying that you know what he was thinking. However, this also really isn't important.
Looking at this as a whole, I feel I have many of the same views as you do, but I fundamentaly disagree with your interpretation of the Senator's comments. Initially, I was trying to provide some insight into why all of this became an issue. I honestly think that most of the people who are ridiculing him are somewhat justified, although it has gone a bit overboard. Besides that, I think we agree on most of the points. This is one of those cases where it just isn't possible to reach an agreeement, even though it seems like we are two reasonable people with similar views. Good discussion though.
From your original post: I'd love to hear reasons why I'm wrong. Other than "Ignore the facts, we must excoriate politicians who are against network neutrality!" Ridiculing a perfectly good metaphor just because you don't agree with the guy using it is not the way to sensible public policy, although I admit it does seem to be how politics is often conducted.
From the last post: Who should we believe or trust - the guy who used a basically appropriate metaphor for the purpose, even if he was confused in other ways, or the people who are claiming counterfactually that the metaphor was wrong, for reasons that can only be guessed at?
That's a little hypocritical there, and the "who should we believe" question is painfully one-side.
But anyway, I really don't think that most people really believe that the "series of tubes" metaphor isn't any good. I think they tend to believe that Stevens doens't know how the internet works, so they make fun of him for calling it a series of tubes. Yes, it's kinda childish to make fun of someone for a slip, but that's life. Is it unfair? I guess so, but maybe not.
I agree that this was what many people seem to think, but it's an error on their part which says more about the listener's assumptions or comprehension than about Stevens. Taken in context, it's quite clear that Stevens was intentionally using a metaphor. If anything, the fact that his language didn't explicitly say so (e.g. by using the word "like"), implies that he felt that the metaphorical nature of his statements were obvious and didn't need to be belabored.
I agree with you that it is clear the he was using a metaphor, as I said in my other post. I also pointed out that, taken in context, he also says that "the internet is not a big truck", which is a metaphor as well, albeit an anti-metaphor (I obviously made that up, but I think you get my meaning). I may be the only one to feel this way, but I think he's wrong and that a truck is a pretty good metaphor for how information is sent over the internet. Putting that together with the series of tubes comment makes it hard to know what he really thinks. Now, I'm not saying I know what he thinks, I'm just saying that it isn't clear whether or not he knows what he's talking about when it comes to the internet, and that I think he probably doesn't have a great a grasp of things. You had just claimed that you know what he was thinking and feeling at the time he said this, which I find to be a bit of a stretch. You are obviously entitled to your own opinions, but I think that his intentions and motivations were anything but clear. You're right that the opinion "says more about the listener's assumptions or comprehension than about Stevens," but which one of us does it say more about? (Seriously, I don't know. That's not supposed to be a rhetorical poke at you). As for the Felton quotes, I'd comment on that but I think you used his quote to draw a political conclusion that he had not intended, so I'm going to leave that alone. From the whole audio file of Stevens's comments, it's pretty apparent that his attackers aren't the only ones who are deliberately obfuscating the truth, if in fact that is his attackers' intentions.
Perhaps if you were paying for google to backup your data you might have a gripe. Perhaps if google claimed some level of reliability. They do neither of those things, and the personal home page doesnt even have fucking ads. Get a grip.
Wow, that's funny because that's pretty much exactly what I said in reponse to a different reply to my post.
(btw - it's not the modules and gadgets developers have been building, it's just.. personalized homepages. the selection and order of widgets across a page...)
That's what I was trying to say. If the person had written down which widgets and such that he or she uses on the personalized page, then they could easily add them again if the information was lost. I think that's the same thing you are saying, but let me know if I'm missing that.
But to the more important point, I don't think I contradicted myself so much as I oversimplified. Obviously, this is a complex issue with no simple answer. For the most part, I think the answer is "shit happens". The question becomes, how important is my information? If the information was that important to the people who lost it, then they should have backed it up. I think it is as simple as that. All of the stuff I have online is expendable, as is most of the information on my computers. I have a backup hard drive where I keep most of my music and other important information that I'd like to save, and that is backed up on a second hard drive (I've built and rebuilt a lot of computers so I have extra hard drives around) in case one dies. Neither of these are connected to computers because this year I lost one of them due to some weird virus or something that was running through my network destroying boot records. This information is important to me, so I keep it. I also keep a hard copy of important phone numbers from my cell phone in case I lose it or it breaks.
In answer to your question at the end of your post, I would say that as data becomes more centralized, it becomes more important to keep copies of the important data for reasons like privacy and proof of activities along with saving the information. If a company loses your information or it gets destroyed, then just like any service, you have the option of moving to another company that provides a better service. I know I didn't really address the archive comment directly, but I think that it works the same as everything else that I've said. Now, if we want to compare archives to things like libraries or private archives, then there would be some type of insurance involved in case the whole place burned down or something. In that sense, maybe these companies will start to offer insurance for information or provide "premium" services that backup the information in more than one physical location. While it does not excuse what happened or what could happen in the future, we do need to remember that Google is a free service when we are looking at what is expected of them.
Ok, maybe I'm missing what everyone is saying here. I keep seeing things like "remotely hosting content opens people up to risks" as if locally hosted content doesn't. There are risks regardless of whether information is hosted.
If my computer breaks down, I'm the fool who didn't back up. When a hosted solution goes down, everyone loses....and you're still the fool for not backing it up. If you keep your information in one place, you risk losing it if something happens to that place. I see now, mainly because you pointed it out not because I can understand what the hell that line meant, that his point was that many people can be affected by a crash when information is hosted remotely. However, the article wasn't about the affect it has on the masses but instead seemed to be about the affects it had on individuals. I think that is going down a different road, but either way the initial point is still valid in that it isn't news. I don't think anyone has trouble understanding that if a million people have their information hosted on a website and that website loses the information, then a million people's (peoples'?) information has just been lost.
I don't necessarily think you are wrong on any single point, but here's my semi-contradictory opinion on this matter.
There is nothing wrong with comparing the internet to a series of tubes. In fact, many computer science textbooks use plumbing as an analogy for the internet, pipelining, and memory management among other things. I think he uproar came about because many people (including myself to some degree) thought that the Senator really thought the internet was some type of series of tubes. Now, I doubt he thinks that the internet is the same as pneumatic tubes, but I also don't think he understands how information travels over the internet and what congestion means.
The internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's - it's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled, and if they're filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line, it's gonna be delayed by anyone who puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material. Now, we have a separate DOD network now, you know that, you know why? Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately and can't afford getting delayed by other people. (I copied that from the sound file on youtube around 9:00 in)
His comments don't seem to be so confusing when you actually listen to them, but when you start to look at what he is actually saying it gets a little worse. First off, from what I've seen, most people tend to use only the line "The internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's - it's a series of tubes." That's fine because there are enough problems right there without getting into the other facts that he misunderstood. Again, I'll agree with you that the series of tubes metaphor is pretty good, but the big truck metaphor is pretty good too if it is taken in the sense of a highway system. If, on the other hand, he actually meant the internet is a single large truck on the road, then it makes no sense at all, so let's assume it's the highway idea. It's kinda like he's saying the sun isn't a burning ball of fire, it's an intensely bright globe. Either of those metaphors are fine by themselves, but together it sounds pretty stupid.
Also, consider referring to the sun as a giant, floating, cheese pizza. I don't see anything wrong with that until you start talking about how if the pizza gets too hot, the cheese will burn. Now you've gone from a fairly decent metaphor to being an idiot who thinks the sun is made out of cheese and bread dough. I think that is what really bothered people about his comments. Yes, he used a fair metaphor, but then he elaborated on it and showed that he really didn't know what he was talking about. After hearing what he said, I questioned whether or not he envisioned a series of tubes carrying notes through the sewers, or something equally ridiculous.
While computers do break down, but my broken Firefox browser doesn't affect yours.
That doesn't make any sense even if try to read it without the word "but". It also doesn't make a lot of sense since you pointed out the one line that the GP was making fun of, but then talk about Firefox breaking, which has nothing to do with the article or the GP's post.
FTA: "I had four tabs stuffed with content on my personalized homepage. Dozens of RSS feeds, half a dozen bookmark gadgets, friends blogs, all my web presences, dozens of other gadgets. I spent weeks tailoring [it] so it was just right for my very intensive
Internet needs," a user wrote on a Google discussion group. "Now it's all gone."
This article is about losing your personalized homepage information that is stored on google's server, not being unable to access their server because something is messed up on your own computer.
With that said, this article is blown way out of proportion. I feel sorry for the guy who spent weeks tailoring... wait, weeks? Are you kidding me? I don't feel sorry for that guy at all. If you spend weeks developing something and don't back it up, it's your own damn fault. There isn't a way to backup this information you say? Then don't spend weeks doing it. That guy sounded like a MMORPG player crying because he just got his account hacked. Yeah, it sucks, but that shit happens. It's a risk you take, and most people should be aware of that risk. Even my parents, who don't understand how the porn spam knows what city they live in and once asked me how to rewind a dvd, know the difference between storing things on your home computer and on the internet. They also know that if you get a bad virus or your hard drive crashes, you might lose everything on your home computer. There are always trade-offs. The GPs post was pointing out that this isn't anything new, and for that matter, it really isn't that serious. It's not like Google just lost everyone's email messages from the last 6 months. Maybe if people had written down all of the widgets and gadgets and tabs and bookmarks then they would be able to restore their information without spending "weeks tailoring" it again.
Furthermore, not everyone has reliable internet service yet. My parents live far enough from any major city that they have to use a shotty wireless cable connection that may or may not work at any given moment. My mom does a lot of work through email and has had to decide between something like gmail and storing emails locally. On the one hand, if she stores it locally and the internet goes out, she still has access to all the emails and can start typing up responses while she is waiting. On the other hand, she travels a lot and uses a desktop and laptop, so storing things online makes it easier to access the information (she isn't very tech-savvy and I have a limit on what I can help her with before I kill one of us). There are trade-offs with every service, so I don't think either will be going away.
Then the question becomes, how do we get 8 parties? Or for that matter, how do we enact any of these changes that so many of us think are necessary? Thomas Jefferson advocated periodic rebellion if not periodic revolution for constitutional renewal (I couldn't find a good link to any quote of his, so I didn't bother to post any of the articles I found that paraphrased). Of course, revolution would allow the American people to change a lot of other things in our government as well. Also, it is OUR government, we aren't the government's people (not that you said anything contrary to that).
Speaking of revolution... wait someone's knocking at my door...
I don't think people are really that ignorant about the disease. Ask someone for one of the causes of skin cancer and you'll probably get "too much sun without sunscreen", or ask for one for lung cancer and you'll get "cigarette smoke". I think most people understand that there are many different types of cancer that can all be caused by different things, but I don't know if they understand that a cure for one might not be a cure for all, if that was even the initial point of this thread. On the other hand, someone may very well find a single cure for all forms of cancer, in which case, is it really wrong to call it a cure for cancer?
Slashdot Mirror
I guess I should have been more clear when I referred to getting us out of a huge mess. The solution can't create a bigger mess, or else it really doesn't help anything. I really don't think that cutting off all the funding would solve the problem that is our occupation of Iraq. I shouldn't need to list all the ways that that could go wrong.
Now I'm not saying that they are going to do any better, but it is entirely too early to come to any either way. And yes, I think there are signs that we will be getting out of Iraq sooner than if Congress was still controlled by the Republicans. I think they're at least trying to get us out, whereas before it seemed like they had no interest in ending this "conflict".
I hate to make another poor analogy, but you got me thinking with "Granted, the idea is you come in for coffee..." This case seems different from the other cases where someone is piggybacking off of another individual's wifi since the network is run by a store/business.
This makes me think of free samples at stores, like at Sam's Club. The samples are supposed to entice you so that you buy the product, but you don't have to buy it. They are a means to get customers to spend money. I'm not breaking any laws if I walk into Sam's (assuming I'm a member, but this applies to Wal-Marts and other stores that provide samples), take a sample from every table, and then walk right out. It seems to me that this wifi is similar since the store is giving it away for free. I guess the difference is that had he come in each day and used his computer without buying anything, someone probably would have noticed and asked him to buy something or banned him from the store, just like they would do if you took free samples everyday without buying anything. But if they left the free samples outside without anyone to monitor who took them... now we're getting closer.
I'm a fan of duct tape. Just tear off a little (as in, slightly larger than the LED) square or two and cover it up. This way you can remove it in the future as well. My only problem is that my monitor has an illuminated power button (so I can't really cover it in any way without losing the button) that flashes when the computer hibernates, so I have to turn my monitor off every night so it doesn't blink... which isn't a big deal but it's still a pretty stupid "feature" to have on a monitor.
This article just makes me laugh because it shows how some people don't understand what makes a "new" gaming system. Calling the Wii a "GameCube 1.5" because of graphics is just ignorant. Do these people really think that graphics power is the only thing that sets apart one system from another (rhetorical)? It explains a lot about why the Wii is doing so well compared to the other systems.
"Cheating bastard" is more than a little bit harsh, but yeah it's a lot closer than being a sissy. And yes, it's definitely nice to see a faker get called, which is the risk in faking... and part of the game.
If only you understood how penalties worked in soccer... Whether anyone likes it or not, "faking" is part of soccer. No one complains about a basketball player who "draws a foul," yet since many Americans don't understand how soccer fouls/penalties work, they see a player who "fakes" an injury as being a sissy. As hard as it is for some people to understand, it's part of the game.
BTW, I grew up in Illinois and have lived there all my life except for the two years I went to college in California before transferring to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. I've also played soccer in both club and school leagues since I was 8 years old, not to mention the other "American" sports I've been involved in over the years.
First off, thanks for saying Harvard has brand power as being one of the best universities and not that Harvard is one of the best universities.
With that said, you make a really good point in that people tend to listen more to things that appear to be special or great. If one of the lesser known but higher ranked law schools had a professor who said the same thing, this wouldn't have nearly as much of an effect. That's assuming that this actually has an effect, but here's to hoping.
Now, considering China supplies a lot to us and we do a lot in China, I don't think Disney is going to cause such an action, but China still has to be careful about what it's doing if it cares about relations with the US. Disney has other options as well, and although their movies don't show it, they could get pretty creative with ways to punish China. The point is, just because China is a country doesn't mean that Disney has no recourse.
Speaking of the president, why should Universities listen to Congress when the president doesn't seem to care what they think? And for that matter, what's Congress gonna do if the Universities don't respond? Send them a stern letter or hold a dinner party about it? I hate that there's some truth to those statements, even though they are just a tiny bit exagerrated.
Considering Disney has made a big deal about people getting tattoos of Disney characters, I can't imagine this will go over well. Actually, I didn't really believe it until I saw a couple other sources.
But more to the point: Ok, in the student handbook for the school where it talks about acceptable use of the school's network, the rules for appropriate use are
A student has access only through his/her student account.
The account is to be used only for identified educational purposes.
A student is held responsible at all times for the proper use of the account and the District may suspend or revoke the student's access for rule violations.
Remember that individuals who receive e-mail from a student with a school address might think the message represents the school's point of view.
No problems there, but under Inappropriate Uses, it has Damage to computers, computer systems or other computer networks including attempting to access systems to which the student has no authorization. This must be the part students are getting in trouble for, but is it really true? Are the students really hacking, or is that talking more about accessing teacher's computers or other information on the school's network? My point is that this seems to be one of those situations where students are getting in trouble because the school is ignorant of what they are doing.
This reminded me of a story I read (search for "librarian" to get the right one) where a student is told to shut down a computer by the librarian because he is using telnet instead of hotmail to check his email, which she basically didn't think was possible. Yes, you can do some malicious things with telnet. Yes, you can do some malicious things when you are behind another proxy. Yes, you can also do some malicious things when you are accessing just about any computer, but that doesn't mean that you are doing malicious things. Just because these kids used a proxy doesn't mean they are doing anything wrong. Hell, at some schools you'd have to do it just to read slashdot or wikipedia.
However, I don't think the school is to blame either. Why is anyone to blame here? Why can't you just tell the kids not to do it again or amend the policy and then leave it at that? What ever happened to warning kids and punishing them if they abuse the second chance? If the school is really concerned about this happening, then they need to protect their network better, but I don't think the kids are really to blame for using their tools to their full potential.
When you start talking about tons of mercury I will stand up and take note
It's not always about concentrations though. Consider regular baking flour. Drop a match in a bag of flour and nothing happens. Blow a cup of flour at a lit flame and you're going to see an explosion (but really, don't do that). Of course, flammability is different from toxicity, but size isn't what makes the difference.
Also, absorbing a substance through the skin is completely different from ingesting it or breathing it in. Even knowing that mercury is dangerous, I wouldn't be afraid to play with it a few times, but I sure as hell wouldn't drop a little in a glass of water and drink it.
I'm gonna pick at the "claiming to know what he thinks" part one more time.
Looking at this as a whole, I feel I have many of the same views as you do, but I fundamentaly disagree with your interpretation of the Senator's comments. Initially, I was trying to provide some insight into why all of this became an issue. I honestly think that most of the people who are ridiculing him are somewhat justified, although it has gone a bit overboard. Besides that, I think we agree on most of the points. This is one of those cases where it just isn't possible to reach an agreeement, even though it seems like we are two reasonable people with similar views. Good discussion though.
From your original post: I'd love to hear reasons why I'm wrong. Other than "Ignore the facts, we must excoriate politicians who are against network neutrality!" Ridiculing a perfectly good metaphor just because you don't agree with the guy using it is not the way to sensible public policy, although I admit it does seem to be how politics is often conducted.
From the last post: Who should we believe or trust - the guy who used a basically appropriate metaphor for the purpose, even if he was confused in other ways, or the people who are claiming counterfactually that the metaphor was wrong, for reasons that can only be guessed at?
That's a little hypocritical there, and the "who should we believe" question is painfully one-side.
But anyway, I really don't think that most people really believe that the "series of tubes" metaphor isn't any good. I think they tend to believe that Stevens doens't know how the internet works, so they make fun of him for calling it a series of tubes. Yes, it's kinda childish to make fun of someone for a slip, but that's life. Is it unfair? I guess so, but maybe not.
I agree that this was what many people seem to think, but it's an error on their part which says more about the listener's assumptions or comprehension than about Stevens. Taken in context, it's quite clear that Stevens was intentionally using a metaphor. If anything, the fact that his language didn't explicitly say so (e.g. by using the word "like"), implies that he felt that the metaphorical nature of his statements were obvious and didn't need to be belabored.
I agree with you that it is clear the he was using a metaphor, as I said in my other post. I also pointed out that, taken in context, he also says that "the internet is not a big truck", which is a metaphor as well, albeit an anti-metaphor (I obviously made that up, but I think you get my meaning). I may be the only one to feel this way, but I think he's wrong and that a truck is a pretty good metaphor for how information is sent over the internet. Putting that together with the series of tubes comment makes it hard to know what he really thinks. Now, I'm not saying I know what he thinks, I'm just saying that it isn't clear whether or not he knows what he's talking about when it comes to the internet, and that I think he probably doesn't have a great a grasp of things. You had just claimed that you know what he was thinking and feeling at the time he said this, which I find to be a bit of a stretch. You are obviously entitled to your own opinions, but I think that his intentions and motivations were anything but clear. You're right that the opinion "says more about the listener's assumptions or comprehension than about Stevens," but which one of us does it say more about? (Seriously, I don't know. That's not supposed to be a rhetorical poke at you). As for the Felton quotes, I'd comment on that but I think you used his quote to draw a political conclusion that he had not intended, so I'm going to leave that alone. From the whole audio file of Stevens's comments, it's pretty apparent that his attackers aren't the only ones who are deliberately obfuscating the truth, if in fact that is his attackers' intentions.
Perhaps if you were paying for google to backup your data you might have a gripe. Perhaps if google claimed some level of reliability. They do neither of those things, and the personal home page doesnt even have fucking ads. Get a grip.
Wow, that's funny because that's pretty much exactly what I said in reponse to a different reply to my post.
(btw - it's not the modules and gadgets developers have been building, it's just.. personalized homepages. the selection and order of widgets across a page...)
That's what I was trying to say. If the person had written down which widgets and such that he or she uses on the personalized page, then they could easily add them again if the information was lost. I think that's the same thing you are saying, but let me know if I'm missing that.
But to the more important point, I don't think I contradicted myself so much as I oversimplified. Obviously, this is a complex issue with no simple answer. For the most part, I think the answer is "shit happens". The question becomes, how important is my information? If the information was that important to the people who lost it, then they should have backed it up. I think it is as simple as that. All of the stuff I have online is expendable, as is most of the information on my computers. I have a backup hard drive where I keep most of my music and other important information that I'd like to save, and that is backed up on a second hard drive (I've built and rebuilt a lot of computers so I have extra hard drives around) in case one dies. Neither of these are connected to computers because this year I lost one of them due to some weird virus or something that was running through my network destroying boot records. This information is important to me, so I keep it. I also keep a hard copy of important phone numbers from my cell phone in case I lose it or it breaks.
In answer to your question at the end of your post, I would say that as data becomes more centralized, it becomes more important to keep copies of the important data for reasons like privacy and proof of activities along with saving the information. If a company loses your information or it gets destroyed, then just like any service, you have the option of moving to another company that provides a better service. I know I didn't really address the archive comment directly, but I think that it works the same as everything else that I've said. Now, if we want to compare archives to things like libraries or private archives, then there would be some type of insurance involved in case the whole place burned down or something. In that sense, maybe these companies will start to offer insurance for information or provide "premium" services that backup the information in more than one physical location. While it does not excuse what happened or what could happen in the future, we do need to remember that Google is a free service when we are looking at what is expected of them.
Ok, maybe I'm missing what everyone is saying here. I keep seeing things like "remotely hosting content opens people up to risks" as if locally hosted content doesn't. There are risks regardless of whether information is hosted.
...and you're still the fool for not backing it up. If you keep your information in one place, you risk losing it if something happens to that place. I see now, mainly because you pointed it out not because I can understand what the hell that line meant, that his point was that many people can be affected by a crash when information is hosted remotely. However, the article wasn't about the affect it has on the masses but instead seemed to be about the affects it had on individuals. I think that is going down a different road, but either way the initial point is still valid in that it isn't news. I don't think anyone has trouble understanding that if a million people have their information hosted on a website and that website loses the information, then a million people's (peoples'?) information has just been lost.
If my computer breaks down, I'm the fool who didn't back up. When a hosted solution goes down, everyone loses.
I don't necessarily think you are wrong on any single point, but here's my semi-contradictory opinion on this matter.
There is nothing wrong with comparing the internet to a series of tubes. In fact, many computer science textbooks use plumbing as an analogy for the internet, pipelining, and memory management among other things. I think he uproar came about because many people (including myself to some degree) thought that the Senator really thought the internet was some type of series of tubes. Now, I doubt he thinks that the internet is the same as pneumatic tubes, but I also don't think he understands how information travels over the internet and what congestion means.
The internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's - it's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled, and if they're filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line, it's gonna be delayed by anyone who puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material. Now, we have a separate DOD network now, you know that, you know why? Because they have to have theirs delivered immediately and can't afford getting delayed by other people. (I copied that from the sound file on youtube around 9:00 in)
His comments don't seem to be so confusing when you actually listen to them, but when you start to look at what he is actually saying it gets a little worse. First off, from what I've seen, most people tend to use only the line "The internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's - it's a series of tubes." That's fine because there are enough problems right there without getting into the other facts that he misunderstood. Again, I'll agree with you that the series of tubes metaphor is pretty good, but the big truck metaphor is pretty good too if it is taken in the sense of a highway system. If, on the other hand, he actually meant the internet is a single large truck on the road, then it makes no sense at all, so let's assume it's the highway idea. It's kinda like he's saying the sun isn't a burning ball of fire, it's an intensely bright globe. Either of those metaphors are fine by themselves, but together it sounds pretty stupid.
Also, consider referring to the sun as a giant, floating, cheese pizza. I don't see anything wrong with that until you start talking about how if the pizza gets too hot, the cheese will burn. Now you've gone from a fairly decent metaphor to being an idiot who thinks the sun is made out of cheese and bread dough. I think that is what really bothered people about his comments. Yes, he used a fair metaphor, but then he elaborated on it and showed that he really didn't know what he was talking about. After hearing what he said, I questioned whether or not he envisioned a series of tubes carrying notes through the sewers, or something equally ridiculous.
FTA: "I had four tabs stuffed with content on my personalized homepage. Dozens of RSS feeds, half a dozen bookmark gadgets, friends blogs, all my web presences, dozens of other gadgets. I spent weeks tailoring [it] so it was just right for my very intensive Internet needs," a user wrote on a Google discussion group. "Now it's all gone."
This article is about losing your personalized homepage information that is stored on google's server, not being unable to access their server because something is messed up on your own computer.
With that said, this article is blown way out of proportion. I feel sorry for the guy who spent weeks tailoring... wait, weeks? Are you kidding me? I don't feel sorry for that guy at all. If you spend weeks developing something and don't back it up, it's your own damn fault. There isn't a way to backup this information you say? Then don't spend weeks doing it. That guy sounded like a MMORPG player crying because he just got his account hacked. Yeah, it sucks, but that shit happens. It's a risk you take, and most people should be aware of that risk. Even my parents, who don't understand how the porn spam knows what city they live in and once asked me how to rewind a dvd, know the difference between storing things on your home computer and on the internet. They also know that if you get a bad virus or your hard drive crashes, you might lose everything on your home computer. There are always trade-offs. The GPs post was pointing out that this isn't anything new, and for that matter, it really isn't that serious. It's not like Google just lost everyone's email messages from the last 6 months. Maybe if people had written down all of the widgets and gadgets and tabs and bookmarks then they would be able to restore their information without spending "weeks tailoring" it again.
Furthermore, not everyone has reliable internet service yet. My parents live far enough from any major city that they have to use a shotty wireless cable connection that may or may not work at any given moment. My mom does a lot of work through email and has had to decide between something like gmail and storing emails locally. On the one hand, if she stores it locally and the internet goes out, she still has access to all the emails and can start typing up responses while she is waiting. On the other hand, she travels a lot and uses a desktop and laptop, so storing things online makes it easier to access the information (she isn't very tech-savvy and I have a limit on what I can help her with before I kill one of us). There are trade-offs with every service, so I don't think either will be going away.
Then the question becomes, how do we get 8 parties? Or for that matter, how do we enact any of these changes that so many of us think are necessary? Thomas Jefferson advocated periodic rebellion if not periodic revolution for constitutional renewal (I couldn't find a good link to any quote of his, so I didn't bother to post any of the articles I found that paraphrased). Of course, revolution would allow the American people to change a lot of other things in our government as well. Also, it is OUR government, we aren't the government's people (not that you said anything contrary to that).
Speaking of revolution... wait someone's knocking at my door...
I don't think people are really that ignorant about the disease. Ask someone for one of the causes of skin cancer and you'll probably get "too much sun without sunscreen", or ask for one for lung cancer and you'll get "cigarette smoke". I think most people understand that there are many different types of cancer that can all be caused by different things, but I don't know if they understand that a cure for one might not be a cure for all, if that was even the initial point of this thread. On the other hand, someone may very well find a single cure for all forms of cancer, in which case, is it really wrong to call it a cure for cancer?