begin quoting Lan Barnes as of Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 03:14:40PM -0700:
> My gawd. Here I go again, in a dialog w/ Stewart. Will I never learn?
It's all good fun. Innit? If you're not having fun, let me know, and
I'll try to tell some more jokes. . .
> On Thu, August 2, 2007 2:11 pm, Stewart Stremler wrote:
> > begin quoting Lan Barnes as of Thu, Aug 02, 2007 at 12:28:24PM -0700:
[snip]
> >> "... my cold dead fingers."
> >
> > "I find your offer acceptable."
> >
>
> "Men in Black" (I)
Yup!
> > I'm bang behind that... keep the little chil-dren off the 'Net! It's a
> > scary place out there. . . . You wouldn't let your kid into a bordello,
> > would you? Why would you let 'em online?
>
> My understanding is that this is exactly what Italian fathers do with
> their sons at 15+. Kind of a coming-of-age thing.
I had a class once where the professor pointed out that we had lost many
of the important rites-of-passage that provide a clear demarcation
between childhood and adulthood.
> (In this country, it
> would undoubtedly morph into a franchise operation, kind of like Chuckee
> Cheese meets the Chicken Ranch.)
Thank you for that disturbing idea. I need a gallon of meme-bleach, please.
[snip]
> > Um... TV reference?
> >
> > I'm culturally deprived in that area.
>
> I'll say!
More than you know. :)
[snip]
> > Oh, yeah, that. I'm catching that in books and movies now. They never
> > seem to have a problem with information overload, however, so they're
> > not using the same INTERNET that I have access to.
>
> The internet has replaced the playground and public restrooms as the focal
> point of parental hysteria.
This is a good thing, yes?
Send those kiddies out to play. Get some exercise!
> >> So when I hear about DRM or asymetrical traffic shaping or content
> >> control, my tin-foil hat begins to throb. Seen it before, heard it
> >> before.
> >
> > DRM pisses me off because it violates the spirit of copyright, and the
> > only players seem to be the big guys. It can work two ways -- what if
> > all of the content *you* create could be denied to anyone who is
> > associated with the RIAA, the MPAA, or the Catholic Church?
>
> Don't forget the Scientologists.
I had 'em in there, but they got removed in the second revision.
> > (Sure, we'd be balkanizing the information, but it's a pleasant little
> > fantasy for at least a couple of minutes.)
>
> I'm convinced that over 50% of file sharing is done by people who could
> care less about the song/movie, and are just pissed off at the [RI|MP]AA.
I dunno. I have insufficient data. The two most egregious file-sharers I
know (10k+ songs) did it because it was "free". They were just cheap.
One had a collection of music already, and the other just didn't see why
he should spend money on music when it's all free on the Internet.
I could buy that half the people sharing copyrighted work would give
being pissed at the {RI,MP}AA as a justification, but I don't think it's
the reason.
> I knew a guy in the Apple ][ days who spent ALL his time cracking copy
> protected games. He had YARDS of 5 1/2" floppies on his bookshelf -- bug
> attack, pacman, whatever. He kept offering them to me. Games bored me then
> and now.
>
> Turns out he never played them himself. He did it because he was pissed
> off that anyone would try to lock up the data.
I knew folks like that. I kind of agree with it. I think that copy protection
should invalidate copyright. Just as you can't both copyright and patent
a work, we should extend the principle: copyright, patents, trade secret, or
copy protection -- pick one, and only one.
> He later committed suicide under the influence of chronic antidepresant
> overdosing. So I'm not advocating this behavior. But I got why he did it,
> and I liked him for it.
:(
> > Asymmetrical traffic shaping doesn't really bother me, because most of
> > what I care about is text, and text is so small that traffic shaping has
> > almost no effect.
>
> Photos are really important, as are videos. The Rodney King incidents of
> the future will be flashed 'round the world on utube ... if it's allowed
> to survive.
Photos might well slip between the cracks, too.
Video... video, I'll grant you. But traffic shaping only slows things
down, and the youtube-style videos are low-resolution and blurry, and if
it takes two minutes to download, instead of thirty seconds, so what?
I'm more concerned with the trend of being unable to download and
*archive* data -- such as youtube-style videos. Who cares about
traffic shaping when the embarassing video can simply be deleted
from the server?
> > I'm not sure what you mean by content control...
>
> Censorship. Which begins with criminalizing kinds of speech and then
> watching it all as it goes by (and you have nothing to fear if you have
> nothing to hide) so you can make examples of, or blackmail, those who
> consume content you are watching for.
Gotcha.
> Because the goal is control, not improving the dialog or making anything
> "safer."
Yup.
I'll join you in the anti-censorship dance. March. Whatever.
> >> I live in the country that never used to torture people ... but that was
> >> all before The Hill Street Blues.
> >
> > Um. Another TV reference?
>
> OK, what's the problem here? You're aware that nobody gives a rat's
> patootie whether you watch or not, right? Besides, how can you get any
> substantive news without the Daily Show?
>
> If you need something to make it all right for you, you can get a TV tuner
> card and watch on a computer.
No, no, my problem is entirely different.
I *can't* have TV around. It sucks out my brain. I go to bed at dawn. I
am the *ideal* mark^Wcustomer for TV viewing. I get entranced. EVEN if
I hate the show.
I can't carry on a conversation, read a book, or accomplish anything if
there's a TV on around me. I may be on the edges of the bell curve in
other areas of my life, but I'm damn smack in the middle of the target
area when it comes to television programming.
(For news, I am forced to rely on google, bbc, digg, /., irc, etc.)
--
On the other hand, I don't get distracted by music.
Stewart Stremler
--
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http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
