We see this same tired series of events played out again and again... someone does something that is part of everyday life, but this time they do it "on the Internet", and the media play it up into this big thing. Because, you know, somehow if you do something "on the Internet" it's *different*.
Please, stop the madness.
Just because one or more computers communicating over the Internet is involved, it does not magically change the nature of what's going on. "Cyberbullying" is just like a bullshit marketing term: somebody made it up to make something old sound new.
If you can help a kid deal with school-yard bullies and the high-school rumor mill, they should be able to cope with this.
I don't get it... why do we have to wait for the telecomm industry to screw us before we can do something? What happened to "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?"
Politicians (and the telecomm lobbyists who pay their bills) like to bloviate about the "free market"; can someone please point out what they're talking about? I've been looking for competition between broadband providers for a decade now, and the only thing I've come across is phone companies complaining that cable operators are horning in.
The linchpin in the system is the switch, the piece of hardware that conducts traffic between the servers, memory and data storage. Code-named Magnum, the switch... I know what you're thinking. Did I forward 65,535 packets or 65,536 packets? Well, to tell you the truth, in all the excitement I kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a Sun Microsystems Magnum, the most powerful switch in the world, and would blow your IP clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?
Go ahead. Make my day.
I would agree with you if this were about hardware...but this is software. Even worse, it's *entertainment*. If people don't even have the willpower to pass over *video games* that are crippled, what chance do we have to actually change things that matter?!
And it's not like we're looking for something that fits an unusual set of requirements...we're just asking them to stop lying to us and illegally tying their software to a certain OS.
I don't think that these cracks are helping...if anything, they are enabling people to go ahead and buy a product that is intentionally broken.
If there was a carmaker that wired a lock on the gas cap that would only open when it read a coded pulse from gas pumps at Exxon stations, the carmaker would go out of business quickly.
Yet, when it comes to software, instead of people refusing to do business with a company like Microsoft they just buy the software anyway if they can get around the restrictions.
Consumers need to grow a pair if they want things to change.
Are you by chance a Hollywood producer? Just like them, you seem to think "science fiction" is just another backdrop for a story: one with cool-looking futuristic stuff and gratuitous robots. I call this the "Michael Bay" phenomenon.
On the other hand, most fans of real science fiction (the kind in books) are fans because of the interesting implications of technology extrapolated into the distant (or not-so-distant) future, the philosophical overtones, and the thought-provoking scenarios, and the unforgettable characters (Lazarus Long, anybody?).
All in all, I prefer "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" over "Podkayne of Mars"...and if you don't know what I'm talking about, then perhaps you should stick to watching Pirates of the Carribean 3.
Your argument (however much I might agree with it), is basically the same as Pascal's Wager; it is an appeal to consequences and therefore a logical fallacy.
You're right, but "Privacy is Transparency" doesn't have the same ring to it;-)
Anyway, the underlying sentiment is the same. Having a private meeting, where the only thing the general public will be privy to is the final conclusions of the entire committee, is not transparent at all. A big part of the push for transparency is so we know what the decision makers really think...what their arguments are and *how* they reach their conclusions.
I daresay that the first-hand accounts of the constitutional congresses (who argued for what, and why) is as important and interesting as (and much more entertaining than!) the final document they produced.
Weitzner, a lawyer and Washington insider before moving to the W3C, said making an event discussing government transparency less transparent was necessary because government officials could then speak more freely "without wondering how the press would interpret what they have to say."
"There are times when in order to have an open exchange of ideas, you need to provide an off-the-record environment, which is what we did," Weitzner said.
So now we can add "Secrecy is Transparency" to the list.
I wonder if we could start a commodities market where movie studios sell tickets/DVDs/downloads for future movie productions. Maybe then "news" like this might be worth something.
Otherwise, wake me up when the movie has actually started *filming*.
Ok, so people with money get food and energy, and people without get neither?
What...this isn't how things already happen? You don't know that rich people in the U.S. already get better food and better health care than poor people?
I'm not talking about getting rid of programs to help people, I'm talking about letting the market drive the farmers and the companies that make things from the crops towards more efficient use of resources. Like, for instance, using rapeseed to produce biodiesel instead of using corn to produce ethanol. Better for the land, more yield and better energy density. The reason GM and Ford like ethanol and that the U.S. food industry like High Fructose Corn Syrup is because corn is really cheap due to federal subsidies creating overproduction. So actually, if we didn't produce so much corn, we would have better biofuels and healthier food!
Conservation is good (I conserve as best I can), but unfortunately it's something that each person has to decide for themselves. Any attempt to force conservation on people is doomed to fail (human nature and all that).
Nobody is suggesting that we use food stocks as the basis of *all* of our industries, but it does make sense for replacements for things that depend on the hydrocarbons we currently get from petroleum sources.
And what about the terrible state of U.S. agriculture? Wouldn't a functioning market with good demand mean that we could finally eliminate backwards and counterproductive subsidies and instead let the market best decide how to use the arable land in the U.S. that is either sitting idle or churning out useless crops?
It sounds far-fetched...until it happens to you. When the RIAA runs out of college students to sue and a process server knocks on your door, I think your tune will change.
Won't happen, right? Well, based on the specious logic in this case, you could be liable for *failing to prevent* other people's access to your licensed versions copyrighted material...which is an entirely different matter from you actually distributing it.
How about if you forgot to lock a door to your house one night, and the police threw you in jail for failing to protect your property (especially if no theft had taken place)?
Pfft. You can't expect to wield supreme executive power based on a vote! Everyone knows that kings are chosen by women distributing swords in a farcical aquatic ceremony. If I said I had been elected Emperor by means of popular vote, they'd put me away!
So, you and tens of thousands of other people and businesses are going to sell right-of-ways through their property for all these new telcos to string cable through? No? Or maybe you've developed some form of wireless transmission with the same bandwidth as fiber? Do tell...
I always assume that any business that I give my e-mail address to will sell it; that's why I don't give it out. Surprisingly enough, I don't get any spam.
This is why many pundits are saying "email is broken"; and it makes sense if you think about it. The setting up of different accounts for each company/person you interact with goes against the whole point of having an e-mail *address* (i.e., a not-too-frequently-changing place to find you).
Really, the spam problem is a symptom of human nature (look up "tragedy of the commons"), and if any of you think you have the secret of changing *that*, then please share...
1. Why do you assume I'm from the US? (I am in the US, but that's a coincidence...lots of other people aren't) 2. I was thinking of all the millions of people on the internet who *aren't* citizens of the US... even though they aren't taxed directly, this would effectively be a burden on their communication with people in the US.
Just how do they expect to enforce their levy of taxes?
Trying to tax the internet is somewhat like trying to tax other forms of communication. The best they'll be able to do is tax the businesses that provide a service to connect to the internet (telcos and ISPs).
That reminds me of something... wasn't the Stamp Act one of those "taxation without representation" things that pissed off the revolutionaries in the 13 colonies? Hmmm...
So, who's problem is that? Ever wonder why car dealerships can't advertise a car at a price of $1 and then at signing charge you $30,000 in fees?
Perhaps it's time for ISPs to actually deliver what they sold us! It's not the consumer's fault that the telcos aren't charging enough to cover the expenses of providing what they promised.
Government-protected monopolies (or government-owned monopolies, depending on where you live) do not get my sympathy.
No P2P provider has ponied up the "protection" money to ensure that their traffic gets the full bandwidth. I wonder how long it will be before one does to get the edge over competitors?
Or maybe this emerging set of content providers will band together fight the ISPs because they constitute a threat?
Then again, maybe a big media conglomerate will merge with AT&T to screw us all...
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We see this same tired series of events played out again and again... someone does something that is part of everyday life, but this time they do it "on the Internet", and the media play it up into this big thing. Because, you know, somehow if you do something "on the Internet" it's *different*.
Please, stop the madness.
Just because one or more computers communicating over the Internet is involved, it does not magically change the nature of what's going on. "Cyberbullying" is just like a bullshit marketing term: somebody made it up to make something old sound new.
If you can help a kid deal with school-yard bullies and the high-school rumor mill, they should be able to cope with this.
Since the FTC doesn't think there's a problem.
I don't get it... why do we have to wait for the telecomm industry to screw us before we can do something? What happened to "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure?"
Politicians (and the telecomm lobbyists who pay their bills) like to bloviate about the "free market"; can someone please point out what they're talking about? I've been looking for competition between broadband providers for a decade now, and the only thing I've come across is phone companies complaining that cable operators are horning in.
...as long as they post a video of it on their website!
I would agree with you if this were about hardware...but this is software. Even worse, it's *entertainment*. If people don't even have the willpower to pass over *video games* that are crippled, what chance do we have to actually change things that matter?!
And it's not like we're looking for something that fits an unusual set of requirements...we're just asking them to stop lying to us and illegally tying their software to a certain OS.
I don't think that these cracks are helping...if anything, they are enabling people to go ahead and buy a product that is intentionally broken.
If there was a carmaker that wired a lock on the gas cap that would only open when it read a coded pulse from gas pumps at Exxon stations, the carmaker would go out of business quickly.
Yet, when it comes to software, instead of people refusing to do business with a company like Microsoft they just buy the software anyway if they can get around the restrictions.
Consumers need to grow a pair if they want things to change.
Are you by chance a Hollywood producer? Just like them, you seem to think "science fiction" is just another backdrop for a story: one with cool-looking futuristic stuff and gratuitous robots. I call this the "Michael Bay" phenomenon.
On the other hand, most fans of real science fiction (the kind in books) are fans because of the interesting implications of technology extrapolated into the distant (or not-so-distant) future, the philosophical overtones, and the thought-provoking scenarios, and the unforgettable characters (Lazarus Long, anybody?).
All in all, I prefer "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" over "Podkayne of Mars"...and if you don't know what I'm talking about, then perhaps you should stick to watching Pirates of the Carribean 3.
Your argument (however much I might agree with it), is basically the same as Pascal's Wager; it is an appeal to consequences and therefore a logical fallacy.
You're right, but "Privacy is Transparency" doesn't have the same ring to it ;-)
Anyway, the underlying sentiment is the same. Having a private meeting, where the only thing the general public will be privy to is the final conclusions of the entire committee, is not transparent at all. A big part of the push for transparency is so we know what the decision makers really think...what their arguments are and *how* they reach their conclusions.
I daresay that the first-hand accounts of the constitutional congresses (who argued for what, and why) is as important and interesting as (and much more entertaining than!) the final document they produced.
So now we can add "Secrecy is Transparency" to the list.
I wonder if we could start a commodities market where movie studios sell tickets/DVDs/downloads for future movie productions. Maybe then "news" like this might be worth something.
Otherwise, wake me up when the movie has actually started *filming*.
What...this isn't how things already happen? You don't know that rich people in the U.S. already get better food and better health care than poor people?
I'm not talking about getting rid of programs to help people, I'm talking about letting the market drive the farmers and the companies that make things from the crops towards more efficient use of resources. Like, for instance, using rapeseed to produce biodiesel instead of using corn to produce ethanol. Better for the land, more yield and better energy density. The reason GM and Ford like ethanol and that the U.S. food industry like High Fructose Corn Syrup is because corn is really cheap due to federal subsidies creating overproduction. So actually, if we didn't produce so much corn, we would have better biofuels and healthier food!
Conservation is good (I conserve as best I can), but unfortunately it's something that each person has to decide for themselves. Any attempt to force conservation on people is doomed to fail (human nature and all that).
Nobody is suggesting that we use food stocks as the basis of *all* of our industries, but it does make sense for replacements for things that depend on the hydrocarbons we currently get from petroleum sources.
And what about the terrible state of U.S. agriculture? Wouldn't a functioning market with good demand mean that we could finally eliminate backwards and counterproductive subsidies and instead let the market best decide how to use the arable land in the U.S. that is either sitting idle or churning out useless crops?
It sounds far-fetched...until it happens to you. When the RIAA runs out of college students to sue and a process server knocks on your door, I think your tune will change.
Won't happen, right? Well, based on the specious logic in this case, you could be liable for *failing to prevent* other people's access to your licensed versions copyrighted material...which is an entirely different matter from you actually distributing it.
How about if you forgot to lock a door to your house one night, and the police threw you in jail for failing to protect your property (especially if no theft had taken place)?
Pfft. You can't expect to wield supreme executive power based on a vote! Everyone knows that kings are chosen by women distributing swords in a farcical aquatic ceremony. If I said I had been elected Emperor by means of popular vote, they'd put me away!
So, you and tens of thousands of other people and businesses are going to sell right-of-ways through their property for all these new telcos to string cable through? No? Or maybe you've developed some form of wireless transmission with the same bandwidth as fiber? Do tell...
I always assume that any business that I give my e-mail address to will sell it; that's why I don't give it out. Surprisingly enough, I don't get any spam.
This is why many pundits are saying "email is broken"; and it makes sense if you think about it. The setting up of different accounts for each company/person you interact with goes against the whole point of having an e-mail *address* (i.e., a not-too-frequently-changing place to find you).
Really, the spam problem is a symptom of human nature (look up "tragedy of the commons"), and if any of you think you have the secret of changing *that*, then please share...
1. Why do you assume I'm from the US? (I am in the US, but that's a coincidence...lots of other people aren't)
2. I was thinking of all the millions of people on the internet who *aren't* citizens of the US... even though they aren't taxed directly, this would effectively be a burden on their communication with people in the US.
nor is it a set group of people, places, etc.
Just how do they expect to enforce their levy of taxes?
Trying to tax the internet is somewhat like trying to tax other forms of communication. The best they'll be able to do is tax the businesses that provide a service to connect to the internet (telcos and ISPs).
That reminds me of something... wasn't the Stamp Act one of those "taxation without representation" things that pissed off the revolutionaries in the 13 colonies? Hmmm...
Please explain how connecting to a network is property theft? Is the person in question "stealing" bits?
So, if the newfangled teleconferencing cost $10,000 a minute, people would be all over it, right?
Perhaps it about *both* the features *and* the cost of communications, hmmm?
So, who's problem is that? Ever wonder why car dealerships can't advertise a car at a price of $1 and then at signing charge you $30,000 in fees?
Perhaps it's time for ISPs to actually deliver what they sold us! It's not the consumer's fault that the telcos aren't charging enough to cover the expenses of providing what they promised.
Government-protected monopolies (or government-owned monopolies, depending on where you live) do not get my sympathy.
No P2P provider has ponied up the "protection" money to ensure that their traffic gets the full bandwidth. I wonder how long it will be before one does to get the edge over competitors?
Or maybe this emerging set of content providers will band together fight the ISPs because they constitute a threat?
Then again, maybe a big media conglomerate will merge with AT&T to screw us all...
Talk about a list that you don't want to be mistakenly included!
I wonder about legal liability for releasing this information if it leads to the death of the undercover agents...
Since when is installing a Microsoft OS an act of kindness?