I think the FBI should fuck the hell off, along with the rest of the federal government. Their purpose isn't law enforcement, it's to violate our civil rights, instil fear, and keep the populace under the thumb of the elitists who run the government (for their own benefit).
Seriously, we need to disband the FBI, the DHS (as Ron Paul said, "we fought World War II without a DHS"), ATF, TSA (a bunch of dumb-fucks who couldn't hack it at McDonalds), DEA, NSA, and pretty much the rest of the federal agencies. We don't need some massive, sprawling, byzantine, corrupt bureaucracy... we just need self-government.
Then it's very disingenuous of you to post the article as if you were a third party when you are not.
Disingenuous? I don't quite see that. At the end of the day, what I said stands or falls on its merits (or lack thereof)... who submitted it to/. is actually pretty irrelevant. Anyway, I'm not going to stop and take the time to create a whole new Slashdot account just to post something today, when I have one I've been using for years.
I suppose you could quibble that I could have used the word "we" in the article description, and that would be something of a fair point. But I just have a habit of writing in a detached, 3rd party voice like that. I don't remember where it came from, but it's the way I've tended to write when referring to organizations in general.
Evidence for abandonment of the "open web" - cancelling Reader and the CalDAV API.
AND abandoning OpenSocial, not implementing any relevant open standards in G+, not developing Android in an open fashion, and probably a few dozen other examples that I can't remember offhand.
Evidence for support of the open web: Chrome, GWT, open sourced jscompiler, V8, tons of random libraries and developer tools, SPDY, extensions to SSL, HTML5 rich snippets in search, etc.
Yeah, nobody is saying that Google haven't done some amazing things in the past. Or even that they don't still do *some* good things. That's what makes this whole situation even more disturbing! When an organization that you have trusted and looked up to for a very long time begins displaying behavior which suggest that it can no longer be trusted, it is very troubling. And ever since the big re-org at the top and since the advent of G+, Google have definitely been displaying markedly different behavior.
In the end, this is less about Google per-se, than it is about being a warning and a "call to action". As many posters on this thread have said, and as I said in the blog post... at the end of the day, the ultimate defender of the Open Web is US. All of us. A motley collection of individuals, small companies, big companies, medium companies, standards bodies, non-profits, etc. But WE, as in grassroots activists, solo hackers, startup founders, etc., need to pull our heads out of our collective bums and start making a lot more noise and taking action, or we'll wind up with a Web which is good for nothing but shoveling ads and government propaganda down our throats and spying on us.
Because this is a complete troll piece to begin with, and adding Microsoft to the list just makes it blatant. Then toss Microsoft into a list of "good guys".
MS aren't seriously listed as "good guys" they are only on the list because it was initially written in something of a "stream of consciousness" fashion, listing companies that jumped to mind, pro or con and then sometimes (as in the case of Microsoft and Facebook) immediately disqualifying them from the "good guys" list.
Nowhere is evidence given for Google "abdicating their position as such a champion," it's simply stated with the hope we accept it as a given.
Anybody who reads the news and is paying attention to what has been going on lately realizes that Google has changed. Are they completely "evil" now? No, but it's quite clear that openness is less important to them than in the past. They've all but declared war on RSS, they never implemented OpenSocial in Google+, G+ doesn't support any of a whole raft of standards that you'd use when building a social network if you cared about openness, Android has *never* really be developed in the open... it's "open source" but Google do everything and then throw code over the wall to the world. Now, don't look a gift horse in the mouth and all, and I'd rather have an Android code dump than no Android code at all. But the point is that there is a pattern present, where Google are showing less and less interest in Open Web principles.
Who owns Fogbeam Labs, anyway?
I do, along with my cofounders.
They claim to be "Open Source 2.0" (what does that even mean?)
We do? If so, that's a mistake, if you'll point out where you saw that, I'll fix it. You're right "Open Source 2.0" is a meaningless term. OTOH, we DO mention producing "Open Source Enterprise 2.0" products, where "Enterprise 2.0" is a widely used term (I happen to HATE it, but it's out there and we don't have much choice but to go with the flow on this one) that sort-of means something to people in the Enterprise space.
and very new.
Yes, we're a startup. Most companies were at one time.:-) I however, as an individual, have been doing this stuff a long time. Go through my/. comment history if you don't believe me.
> Seriously, though, it seems to me that infrastructure spending is one of those no-brainer things that shouldn't even be a question.
Of course it's a question; why should it be any different just because it's "infrastructure?" If there is demand for it, let the free-market provide it... nothing dictates that "infrastructure" be provided by some entity that maintains a monopoly on the use of force. Note too that "free market" includes voluntarily assembled co-operatives and communes. Communal activity for common good is one thing... forced participation in some initiative, at the point of a gun barrel, is something quite different.
Nobody wants to use some proprietary shit anyway. F/OSS continues to displace Microsoft's shitty, inferior proprietary garbage with every passing day, and that's a trend they won't be stopping anytime soon.
I just switched to KDE about 3 weeks ago. My old laptop had finally decayed to the point that I felt justified in buying a new one, and so I bought a new Toshiba, and slapped Fedora 16 on it. After about 15 minutes of Gnome 3, I had had enough, and switched my default environment to KDE. It took me less than a day to feel pretty comfortable with KDE, and I couldn't be happier with it as things stand.
Sadly, the only *real* reason I stuck with Gnome as long as I did, was because it had always been the default on RH based distros, and I was just too lazy to invest the energy to switch and learn a different environment. Well, that and at one time there was sort of a perception that KDE was less "mainstream" somehow because their libraries were GPL licensed. But since KDE went LGPL and as the new versions have improved since the 4.0 release (as I understand it), I don't see any reason to favor Gnome any more.
Don't waste your time. We will crack your codes, root your servers, publish your secret documents, and ensure the transparency that is prerequisite to a free and open society.
No matter what steps you take to attempt to hide the corruption and cronyism that dominate this country, we will defeat you. We, the cyberpunks, cypherpunks, crypto-anarchists, techno-libertarians and hackers, will not only evade and defeat any technological measure that you attempt to use against us, but we will actively subvert any such mechanism and use it to further the cause of freedom and liberty.
If you listen to us, we will listen to you. if you track our whereabouts, we will track yours. If you attempt to destroy our systems, we will destroy yours. We will not allow you to control the free flow of information and use secrecy and fear as tools to oppress the people.
about whether patients should be allowed to take the risks that come with untested treatments
That begs of the question of whether or not somebody else has the authority to make that decision for the patient. I contend that the answer is no, and that the original question is moot. An individual can choose whatever treatment they want, and if they die, well... they die. As long as no force or coercion is involved, it's fine.
Hardly. It might raise some ethical conundrums, but it certainly won't make colonization any more difficult.
If we ever colonize mars, we're going to start by building habitats. We'll have hundreds of years to live on a planet which we haven't even begun to terraform.
> The only thing that would probably appease the EU is if a fork of MySQL was established that would allow an easy transition or as others have mentioned that MySQL is spun off.
Aren't there about a dozen forks of MySQL already?
> Do people not understand the concept of what identification is and why we need it?
I'm wondering if *you* understand the concept of identification and why we need it, to be frank. But more to the point...
> Your drivers licence has become so much more than just a "drivers licence."
Why should a government issued "drivers license" be the gold standard for identification, and why should anybody be bound to require the presence of such an ID for a private transaction (like opening a bank account, purchasing alcohol, buying a gun, boarding an airplane, etc.)? The government can't do anything else right, why would we trust them with our identities? And even more to the point still is this.. it's just not a proper role for government to mandate anything about how we identify ourselves. The only proper roles of government are to provide rule-of-law, protect private property rights, and - arguably - to enforce contracts.
Now if the government wants to say "fine, if you expect us to enforce your contract, then identify yourself to our standards" then ok... but they have no basis to tell another private person/entity that they must - in turn - require a government sanctioned ID in order to conduct business with me.
Unfortunately the NC state government are just lap dogs for the Feds. Our DMV has been one of the most aggressive about complying with RealID, and otherwise participating in the feds privacy violating schemes, for years now. Sad for a state with an unofficial state motto of "First In Freedom", huh?
You mean we could - theoretically - use browsers for what they were meant for (browsing hypermedia) and NOT try to turn the browser into the all-in-one universal application delivery platform????
BRILLIANT!
I'd like to hear more about your ideas, please subscribe me to your newsletter.
You aren't voting for who you want to win, you're voting for who you want that can win.
I'm voting for the best candidate with a mathematical chance of winning, and hoping for a Black Swan event. Failing that, I'll trust that my vote for a losing candidate (if things break that way) at least sends a message, especially if the votes my candidate gets represent more than the difference between the winner and the loser.
IOW, if I vote for Bob Barr, who gets 1 million votes, and Obama beats McCain by 400,000 votes, I'll be hoping that Republicans learn the lesson that they have to shift their policies in a more libertarian direction in order to earn that block of votes in the future.
A vote for a losing candidate can still affect policy in the long-term.
And yes, I know I conveniently ignored the whole electoral college thing, but the overall principle is still the same.
And how much money is the NC DMV going to waste on this silliness? This has to be one of the most ludicrous things I've ever heard of. Look, if the three letter sequence "WTF" offends you, you really need to grow a thicker skin and/or get over yourself.
Of course, the bigger issue here is this: there's no good reason for having a DMV and license plates and all this nonsense in the first place. Get rid of DMV, save the citizens of taxpayer a bundle of money and gosh only knows how many hours lost standing in line. Everybody wins.
Ron Paul is an isolationist, when measured against current American policies.
Ron Paul is not an isolationist, he's a non-interventionist. If "current American policies" don't allow for that distinction, then current American policies are seriously broken.
I'm skeptical of Barr's supposed "road to damascus moment" as well, but I know a number of people - whose opinions I respect - that know Barr personally and have said he means well at heart. And for him to go to the extreme of quitting the GOP and joining the LP and running as a Libertarian, I think has to mean something. Flip-flopping is one thing, but going to the extreme of quitting an established party and joining a 3rd party is a big step for a guy who was once "part of the machine."
Is Barr my first choice for President in general? No, I'd rather have Mary Ruwart or Steve Kubby. But is Barr > (Obama | McCain)? In my opinion, yes, which is why I'll support him despite his past.
Slashdot Mirror
> What do Slashdot's readers think?
I think the FBI should fuck the hell off, along with the rest of the federal government. Their purpose isn't law enforcement, it's to violate our civil rights, instil fear, and keep the populace under the thumb of the elitists who run the government (for their own benefit).
Seriously, we need to disband the FBI, the DHS (as Ron Paul said, "we fought World War II without a DHS"), ATF, TSA (a bunch of dumb-fucks who couldn't hack it at McDonalds), DEA, NSA, and pretty much the rest of the federal agencies. We don't need some massive, sprawling, byzantine, corrupt bureaucracy... we just need self-government.
Then it's very disingenuous of you to post the article as if you were a third party when you are not.
Disingenuous? I don't quite see that. At the end of the day, what I said stands or falls on its merits (or lack thereof)... who submitted it to /. is actually pretty irrelevant. Anyway, I'm not going to stop and take the time to create a whole new Slashdot account just to post something today, when I have one I've been using for years.
I suppose you could quibble that I could have used the word "we" in the article description, and that would be something of a fair point. But I just have a habit of writing in a detached, 3rd party voice like that. I don't remember where it came from, but it's the way I've tended to write when referring to organizations in general.
OP here...
Evidence for abandonment of the "open web" - cancelling Reader and the CalDAV API.
AND abandoning OpenSocial, not implementing any relevant open standards in G+, not developing Android in an open fashion, and probably a few dozen other examples that I can't remember offhand.
Evidence for support of the open web: Chrome, GWT, open sourced jscompiler, V8, tons of random libraries and developer tools, SPDY, extensions to SSL, HTML5 rich snippets in search, etc.
Yeah, nobody is saying that Google haven't done some amazing things in the past. Or even that they don't still do *some* good things. That's what makes this whole situation even more disturbing! When an organization that you have trusted and looked up to for a very long time begins displaying behavior which suggest that it can no longer be trusted, it is very troubling. And ever since the big re-org at the top and since the advent of G+, Google have definitely been displaying markedly different behavior.
In the end, this is less about Google per-se, than it is about being a warning and a "call to action". As many posters on this thread have said, and as I said in the blog post... at the end of the day, the ultimate defender of the Open Web is US. All of us. A motley collection of individuals, small companies, big companies, medium companies, standards bodies, non-profits, etc. But WE, as in grassroots activists, solo hackers, startup founders, etc., need to pull our heads out of our collective bums and start making a lot more noise and taking action, or we'll wind up with a Web which is good for nothing but shoveling ads and government propaganda down our throats and spying on us.
Because this is a complete troll piece to begin with, and adding Microsoft to the list just makes it blatant.
Then toss Microsoft into a list of "good guys".
MS aren't seriously listed as "good guys" they are only on the list because it was initially written in something of a "stream of consciousness" fashion, listing companies that jumped to mind, pro or con and then sometimes (as in the case of Microsoft and Facebook) immediately disqualifying them from the "good guys" list.
Nowhere is evidence given for Google "abdicating their position as such a champion," it's simply stated with the hope we accept it as a given.
Anybody who reads the news and is paying attention to what has been going on lately realizes that Google has changed. Are they completely "evil" now? No, but it's quite clear that openness is less important to them than in the past. They've all but declared war on RSS, they never implemented OpenSocial in Google+, G+ doesn't support any of a whole raft of standards that you'd use when building a social network if you cared about openness, Android has *never* really be developed in the open... it's "open source" but Google do everything and then throw code over the wall to the world. Now, don't look a gift horse in the mouth and all, and I'd rather have an Android code dump than no Android code at all. But the point is that there is a pattern present, where Google are showing less and less interest in Open Web principles.
Who owns Fogbeam Labs, anyway?
I do, along with my cofounders.
They claim to be "Open Source 2.0" (what does that even mean?)
We do? If so, that's a mistake, if you'll point out where you saw that, I'll fix it. You're right "Open Source 2.0" is a meaningless term. OTOH, we DO mention producing "Open Source Enterprise 2.0" products, where "Enterprise 2.0" is a widely used term (I happen to HATE it, but it's out there and we don't have much choice but to go with the flow on this one) that sort-of means something to people in the Enterprise space.
and very new.
Yes, we're a startup. Most companies were at one time. :-) I however, as an individual, have been doing this stuff a long time. Go through my /. comment history if you don't believe me.
> Seriously, though, it seems to me that infrastructure spending is one of those no-brainer things that shouldn't even be a question.
Of course it's a question; why should it be any different just because it's "infrastructure?" If there is demand for it, let the free-market provide it... nothing dictates that "infrastructure" be provided by some entity that maintains a monopoly on the use of force. Note too that "free market" includes voluntarily assembled co-operatives and communes. Communal activity for common good is one thing... forced participation in some initiative, at the point of a gun barrel, is something quite different.
Nobody wants to use some proprietary shit anyway. F/OSS continues to displace Microsoft's shitty, inferior proprietary garbage with every passing day, and that's a trend they won't be stopping anytime soon.
I just switched to KDE about 3 weeks ago. My old laptop had finally decayed to the point that I felt justified in buying a new one, and
so I bought a new Toshiba, and slapped Fedora 16 on it. After about 15 minutes of Gnome 3, I had had enough, and switched my default environment
to KDE. It took me less than a day to feel pretty comfortable with KDE, and I couldn't be happier with it as things stand.
Sadly, the only *real* reason I stuck with Gnome as long as I did, was because it had always been the default on RH based distros, and I was just too lazy
to invest the energy to switch and learn a different environment. Well, that and at one time there was sort of a perception that KDE was less "mainstream" somehow because their libraries were GPL licensed. But since KDE went LGPL and as the new versions have improved since the 4.0 release (as I understand it), I don't see any reason to favor Gnome any more.
Label me a convert. KDE all the way.
Dear government:
Don't waste your time. We will crack your codes, root your servers, publish your secret documents, and ensure the transparency that is prerequisite to a free and open society.
No matter what steps you take to attempt to hide the corruption and cronyism that dominate this country, we will defeat you. We, the cyberpunks, cypherpunks, crypto-anarchists, techno-libertarians and hackers, will not only evade and defeat any technological measure that you attempt to use against us, but we will actively subvert any such mechanism and use it to further the cause of freedom and liberty.
If you listen to us, we will listen to you. if you track our whereabouts, we will track yours. If you attempt to destroy our systems, we will destroy yours. We will not allow you to control the free flow of information and use secrecy and fear as tools to oppress the people.
#cryptoanarchism #technolibertarian #cyberpunk #cypherpunk #fuckthepolice
about whether patients should be allowed to take the risks that come with untested treatments
That begs of the question of whether or not somebody else has the authority to make that decision for the patient. I contend that the answer is no, and that the original question is moot. An individual can choose whatever treatment they want, and if they die, well... they die. As long as no force or coercion is involved, it's fine.
> The only thing that leaving a computer on will do is get you a massive electricity bill.
So you're telling me that the sentient AI that I've been growing in my basement for the past 15 years.. isn't?
Well, f%!# me.... :-(
I am sure gopher and archie are still used somewhere too.
Indeed.
Please hope the Brits don't make first contact with ET, their track record isn't so hot when it comes to handling these things...
QFT.
Hardly. It might raise some ethical conundrums, but it certainly won't make colonization any more difficult.
If we ever colonize mars, we're going to start by building habitats. We'll have hundreds of years to live on a planet which we haven't even begun to terraform.
Cool. Just don't drink the water.
> The only thing that would probably appease the EU is if a fork of MySQL was established that would allow an easy transition or as others have mentioned that MySQL is spun off.
Aren't there about a dozen forks of MySQL already?
> Do people not understand the concept of what identification is and why we need it?
I'm wondering if *you* understand the concept of identification and why we need it, to be frank. But more to the point...
> Your drivers licence has become so much more than just a "drivers licence."
Why should a government issued "drivers license" be the gold standard for identification, and why should anybody be bound to require the presence of such an ID for a private transaction (like opening a bank account, purchasing alcohol, buying a gun, boarding an airplane, etc.)? The government can't do anything else right, why would we trust them with our identities? And even more to the point still is this.. it's just not a proper role for government to mandate anything about how we identify ourselves. The only proper roles of government are to provide rule-of-law, protect private property rights, and - arguably - to enforce contracts.
Now if the government wants to say "fine, if you expect us to enforce your contract, then identify yourself to our standards" then ok... but they have no basis to tell another private person/entity that they must - in turn - require a government sanctioned ID in order to conduct business with me.
Unfortunately the NC state government are just lap dogs for the Feds. Our DMV has been one of the most aggressive about complying with RealID, and otherwise participating in the feds privacy violating schemes, for years now. Sad for a state with an unofficial state motto of "First In Freedom", huh?
They had a universe-destroying threat at least once every season.
How about Logopolis? That was a great "universe destroying" concept... just plain old entropy. :-)
You mean we could - theoretically - use browsers for what they were meant for (browsing hypermedia) and NOT try to turn the browser into the all-in-one universal application delivery platform????
BRILLIANT!
I'd like to hear more about your ideas, please subscribe me to your newsletter.
F%!# Tories, vote Libertarian.
You aren't voting for who you want to win, you're voting for who you want that can win.
I'm voting for the best candidate with a mathematical chance of winning, and hoping for a Black Swan event. Failing that, I'll trust that my vote for a losing candidate (if things break that way) at least sends a message, especially if the votes my candidate gets represent more than the difference between the winner and the loser.
IOW, if I vote for Bob Barr, who gets 1 million votes, and Obama beats McCain by 400,000 votes, I'll be hoping that Republicans learn the lesson that they have to shift their policies in a more libertarian direction in order to earn that block of votes in the future.
A vote for a losing candidate can still affect policy in the long-term.
And yes, I know I conveniently ignored the whole electoral college thing, but the overall principle is still the same.
And how much money is the NC DMV going to waste on this silliness? This has to be one of the most ludicrous things I've ever heard of. Look, if the three letter sequence "WTF" offends you, you really need to grow a thicker skin and/or get over yourself.
Of course, the bigger issue here is this: there's no good reason for having a DMV and license plates and all this nonsense in the first place. Get rid of DMV, save the citizens of taxpayer a bundle of money and gosh only knows how many hours lost standing in line. Everybody wins.
Really? Personally, I find that kinda hard to believe, ya know?
What's next, using MySpace and LinkedIn to promote political campaigns?
Ron Paul is an isolationist, when measured against current American policies.
Ron Paul is not an isolationist, he's a non-interventionist. If "current American policies" don't allow for that distinction, then current American policies are seriously broken.
I'm skeptical of Barr's supposed "road to damascus moment" as well, but I know a number of people - whose opinions I respect - that know Barr personally and have said he means well at heart. And for him to go to the extreme of quitting the GOP and joining the LP and running as a Libertarian, I think has to mean something. Flip-flopping is one thing, but going to the extreme of quitting an established party and joining a 3rd party is a big step for a guy who was once "part of the machine."
Is Barr my first choice for President in general? No, I'd rather have Mary Ruwart or Steve Kubby. But is Barr > (Obama | McCain)? In my opinion, yes, which is why I'll support him despite his past.