Hey, why don't we sell them the FBI's security software? We can invade them while they're trying to click through all the error messages.
The serious comment:
This article is bait for all the foil hat wearers and doomsayers to come out of the woodworks whining about our governments and the governments of the world. Let's face it people. You get up in the morning, you brush your teeth, you go earn your paycheck, and presumably you have enough free time to post on this website! What "civil liberties" are you lacking here? You have the freedom to whine about our government on Slashdot, and do you think the CIA is watching you for doing it? And so what if you are? Might as well make up conspiracies about religions that say "God is watching you!" God, Big Brother, what's the big deal? Just live your lives for goodness sake, go vote, and if you have a problem with the way things are run write a letter to your Congressman, then you'll KNOW someone in the government will be paying attention to your opinions. And if China wants to watch their people and put them under totalitarian government, it's not our job to police them.
In fact, let me try (with my limited vocabulary) to present you all with a little conundrum. Back in the Cold War, we were very set on "liberating Communist Russia", because we didn't like the way the people were being treated - in much the same way you are all complaining about China being treated. So our government began to take actions to stop Communism in all its forms, and men like Andrew McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover came into power, pioneering the "big brother" image of our government today, the same image that you're all complaining about.
So in essence, aren't you in support of forcing our "Democratic principles" on the Chinese nation, while arguing against what happened the last time we tried to do that? Do the ends REALLY justify the means? Should we be minding our own business and letting well enough alone?
Ockham's Razor, people. Simplest explanation blah blah blah...the person who posted it typed the subject line by hand and put "brothers" instead of "brother", simple typo. Implications of greater conspiracy? I feel like I'm on one of those Area 51 websites. Take off your foil hats guys.
This is an interesting argument on the subject of computer culture, and a difficult one to address to the fullest.
My personal opinion has always been one that they are no longer LAPTOP computers, they're more NOTEBOOK computers. The ventilation systems on many laptops are situated on the underside of the laptop, and heat transfers downward then out to the sides. As a computer tech, too many times have I seen a customer complain that their computer overheats or has gotten fried because they keep it on a bed surface or their lap, and the heat transfers into fabric or skin that only gets hot itself and transfers the heat right back. I suppose the only way to have a laptop in bed is to have a flat surface to place it on, but I wouldn't even do that. It's important for me to establish an office space for myself, and to keep my bed area as only a sleeping space.
I suspect that with this new advent of telecommuting in bed there will be a rise in insomnia, due to the psychological reaction to using your sleeping space for work. In fact, what they tell a lot of insomniacs in order to ease insomnia is only to use your bed for sleeping, to help the subconscious mind identify bed with sleep.
As far as the difficulties this causes to relationships...well, it's really going to be on a couple by couple basis. If both members of the couple are business sharks, they'd both be sitting up in bed working...that would almost be a sort of "quality time". But if one is up typing and the other is sleeping that could get pretty rough. Here's hoping the modern American family adapts comfortably to this new development.
I'm going to have to agree with WMF above, the examples that the journalist provided in that article are not general search terms for target audiences. He also didn't provide statistics. The reader has no way of knowing whether the journalist put in 10 search terms of his choosing and all ten showed a decline, or whether he sat there for days and put in a thousand different search terms (which I highly doubt).
For example, in a search for trends on searches for "porn", the trend is UP. Searches for "video games" have held pretty steady since 2004. I think he may not have been using general search terms. Maybe he just doesn't want to believe his wonderful trance music could possibly be on the decline.;P
In order to critique the quality of journalism in this piece, one needs to understand the nature of journalism itself first. In order to educate the uneducated I have provided links with information (however limited) on the topics addressed.
The first example I would like to present is an investigative report on the subject, written by Colin Barker over at cnet UK, located here. You might notice that in this report, the journalist provides information he was able to collect on the subject, without influencing the article with his own opinions.
The second example is what we know as an editorial on the same subject. This one is written by Chris Stevens at Crave Talk, a column hosted on cnet UK (which I suppose makes this a "leader" instead of an editorial) and readable here. You may notice that in an editorial, the journalist provides only what information is necessary for the reader to generate an opinion subjectively (much like the above journalist has done) and expound with his own opinion before encouraging others.
Many writers of editorial columns are "personalities", journalists who make characters of themselves to expand their readership. A known personality is Ann Landers, who wrote as "Dear Abby" for so many years. These personalities can be witty, humorous, sarcastic, or outright cruel.
The above journalist has posted a counter-point to the Cnet article, attacking Chris Stevens's abilities as a journalist who generated his article largely based on opinion. He attacks the definition of spam without expanding on his argument by explaining what spam really is, then goes on to attack what he calls "irresponsible" journalism.
He then goes on to attack the reform system of the United States justice system, for a U.K. case. His responses to comments in this regard, to paraphrase, are statements that the editorial article does not indicate that it took place in the U.K., so how was he to know? He has taken it upon himself to act as a representative of the media (despite attacking the media) and therefore makes himself responsible for fact checking, which he does not do. That he could not research and find the above investigative report indicates that he did not try, or is simply a bad fact checker.
This journalist's opinion is that the above journalist is unprofessional, unresearched and uninformed on the topics he writes on, he has no journalistic background, and has no place commenting in the realm of modern journalism. Thank you.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought your delivery was just fine the way it was. Mine on the other hand IS too deadpan, muahahaha.
The unserious comment:
Hey, why don't we sell them the FBI's security software? We can invade them while they're trying to click through all the error messages.
The serious comment:
This article is bait for all the foil hat wearers and doomsayers to come out of the woodworks whining about our governments and the governments of the world. Let's face it people. You get up in the morning, you brush your teeth, you go earn your paycheck, and presumably you have enough free time to post on this website! What "civil liberties" are you lacking here? You have the freedom to whine about our government on Slashdot, and do you think the CIA is watching you for doing it? And so what if you are? Might as well make up conspiracies about religions that say "God is watching you!" God, Big Brother, what's the big deal? Just live your lives for goodness sake, go vote, and if you have a problem with the way things are run write a letter to your Congressman, then you'll KNOW someone in the government will be paying attention to your opinions. And if China wants to watch their people and put them under totalitarian government, it's not our job to police them.
In fact, let me try (with my limited vocabulary) to present you all with a little conundrum. Back in the Cold War, we were very set on "liberating Communist Russia", because we didn't like the way the people were being treated - in much the same way you are all complaining about China being treated. So our government began to take actions to stop Communism in all its forms, and men like Andrew McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover came into power, pioneering the "big brother" image of our government today, the same image that you're all complaining about.
So in essence, aren't you in support of forcing our "Democratic principles" on the Chinese nation, while arguing against what happened the last time we tried to do that? Do the ends REALLY justify the means? Should we be minding our own business and letting well enough alone?
Ockham's Razor, people. Simplest explanation blah blah blah...the person who posted it typed the subject line by hand and put "brothers" instead of "brother", simple typo. Implications of greater conspiracy? I feel like I'm on one of those Area 51 websites. Take off your foil hats guys.
This is an interesting argument on the subject of computer culture, and a difficult one to address to the fullest.
My personal opinion has always been one that they are no longer LAPTOP computers, they're more NOTEBOOK computers. The ventilation systems on many laptops are situated on the underside of the laptop, and heat transfers downward then out to the sides. As a computer tech, too many times have I seen a customer complain that their computer overheats or has gotten fried because they keep it on a bed surface or their lap, and the heat transfers into fabric or skin that only gets hot itself and transfers the heat right back. I suppose the only way to have a laptop in bed is to have a flat surface to place it on, but I wouldn't even do that. It's important for me to establish an office space for myself, and to keep my bed area as only a sleeping space.
I suspect that with this new advent of telecommuting in bed there will be a rise in insomnia, due to the psychological reaction to using your sleeping space for work. In fact, what they tell a lot of insomniacs in order to ease insomnia is only to use your bed for sleeping, to help the subconscious mind identify bed with sleep.
As far as the difficulties this causes to relationships...well, it's really going to be on a couple by couple basis. If both members of the couple are business sharks, they'd both be sitting up in bed working...that would almost be a sort of "quality time". But if one is up typing and the other is sleeping that could get pretty rough. Here's hoping the modern American family adapts comfortably to this new development.
I'm going to have to agree with WMF above, the examples that the journalist provided in that article are not general search terms for target audiences. He also didn't provide statistics. The reader has no way of knowing whether the journalist put in 10 search terms of his choosing and all ten showed a decline, or whether he sat there for days and put in a thousand different search terms (which I highly doubt).
;P
For example, in a search for trends on searches for "porn", the trend is UP. Searches for "video games" have held pretty steady since 2004. I think he may not have been using general search terms. Maybe he just doesn't want to believe his wonderful trance music could possibly be on the decline.
I think you just gave me a new goal in life. I would also like to run MadOnion on that sucker just once.
In order to critique the quality of journalism in this piece, one needs to understand the nature of journalism itself first. In order to educate the uneducated I have provided links with information (however limited) on the topics addressed.
The first example I would like to present is an investigative report on the subject, written by Colin Barker over at cnet UK, located here. You might notice that in this report, the journalist provides information he was able to collect on the subject, without influencing the article with his own opinions.
The second example is what we know as an editorial on the same subject. This one is written by Chris Stevens at Crave Talk, a column hosted on cnet UK (which I suppose makes this a "leader" instead of an editorial) and readable here. You may notice that in an editorial, the journalist provides only what information is necessary for the reader to generate an opinion subjectively (much like the above journalist has done) and expound with his own opinion before encouraging others.
Many writers of editorial columns are "personalities", journalists who make characters of themselves to expand their readership. A known personality is Ann Landers, who wrote as "Dear Abby" for so many years. These personalities can be witty, humorous, sarcastic, or outright cruel.
The above journalist has posted a counter-point to the Cnet article, attacking Chris Stevens's abilities as a journalist who generated his article largely based on opinion. He attacks the definition of spam without expanding on his argument by explaining what spam really is, then goes on to attack what he calls "irresponsible" journalism.
He then goes on to attack the reform system of the United States justice system, for a U.K. case. His responses to comments in this regard, to paraphrase, are statements that the editorial article does not indicate that it took place in the U.K., so how was he to know? He has taken it upon himself to act as a representative of the media (despite attacking the media) and therefore makes himself responsible for fact checking, which he does not do. That he could not research and find the above investigative report indicates that he did not try, or is simply a bad fact checker.
This journalist's opinion is that the above journalist is unprofessional, unresearched and uninformed on the topics he writes on, he has no journalistic background, and has no place commenting in the realm of modern journalism. Thank you.