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1.  

   

   Anonymous Coward, Apr 11th, 2008 @ 1:36pm

   
   

   Your headline was a bit misleading. According to the original article, congress asked for any websites to volunteer to offer them a way to host videos, without links to commercial sites. Youtube volunteered. There was no "Making" them do anything.

    

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2.  

   

   Anonymous Coward, Apr 11th, 2008 @ 3:02pm

   
   

   Vote him out of California's 22 district.

   Kevin should focus on more important things, like less blackouts, and potable water.

    

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3.  

   

   Alan D, Apr 11th, 2008 @ 3:29pm

   
   

   Bits are the same as bytes... no?

   In the same way, you don't have "less" blackouts, you have "fewer" blackouts. You can have fewer of an item, and less of a quantity. This is pretty basic English, and although I mostly enjoy AC's comments their impact is diminished if the grammar and syntax is incorrect.
   
   My God! I'm becoming an old fogey! Thank goodness it doesn't stop me being right!

    

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4.  

   

   Chickenoodle, Apr 11th, 2008 @ 3:36pm

   
   

   Re: Bits are the same as bytes... no?

   Bits and Bytes are not the same. Bytes contain eight bits.

    

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5.  

   

   nfk, Apr 11th, 2008 @ 4:19pm

   
   

   I don't know

   ...worried about them spending time on something as silly as this."

   It'll be hard to top freedom fries for wasting time.

    

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6.  

   

   Anonymous Coward, Apr 11th, 2008 @ 6:42pm

   
   

   Yeah - great idea

   I don't like seeing these asshats on TV, and now they think I'll go out of my way to watch their propoganda on gootube ?
   
   They probably have plans to astroturf their page in an effort to make it look like they have a following.
   
   These are the folks who skirt the limits on campaign contributions by writing a book. Everyone knows that lawyers can not write in a literary sense. But their books sell by the thousands. I wonder if anyone reads them.

    

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7.  

   

   Anonymous Coward, Apr 11th, 2008 @ 10:33pm

   
   

   Re: Re: Bits are the same as bytes... no?

   Bits and Bytes are not the same. Bytes contain eight bits.
   
   A byte may contain eight bits. Historically, bytes have ranged from five to twelve bits.

    

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8.  

   

   Anonymous Coward, Apr 11th, 2008 @ 11:26pm

   
   

   Re:

   Youtube volunteered. There was no "Making" them do anything.

   "Hi there, we're from the government. We make the laws that you operate and pay taxes under and fund the agencies that regulate you. Now we have a little favor to ask of you. Of course, you don't have to cooperate if you don't want to. It's strictly voluntary. Just remember who we are."

    

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9.  

   

   Shagger, Apr 12th, 2008 @ 12:02am

   
   

   http://www.dragon.com = votes

    

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10.  

    

    Anonymous Coward, Apr 12th, 2008 @ 1:06am

    
    

    Re: Re:

    Not even close though, was it? They didn't directly ask Youtube, and lots of sites *haven't* volunteered. Very much a case of a headline that doesn't match the content, I'm disappointed.

     

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11.  

    

    Anonymous Coward, Apr 12th, 2008 @ 5:30am

    
    

    YouTube videos and Congress

    @original article: You mention you're not sure if you were worried that this was something silly that Congress was doing. This is not silly at all actually. I work for the Federal Government in the area of communications and outreach. Where I work we are up against a major problem where we have a lot of great video that we've produced, or plan to produce, and are trying to get those videos out to the public. Specifically, we're trying to reach the "millenial" generation. The problem is that most people don't just go out and browse .gov websites for the latest video. If we put video up on our site then we're limited by the visitors that typically come to us for other government resources. Additionally, there's a major cost associated with setting up your own stream video site/service and then you're still not guaranteed that the audience you're trying to reach will see your videos.
    
    But, if the Government can use YouTube, sans ads and branding, then it gives a place to share our videos with the audience that we're trying to reach on the websites that they look at daily. Our outreach ability has just increase 100 fold. The "sans ads" is ideal because, in the Government, you ARE restricted from favoring one commercial vendor over another because it can be seen as endorsement.
    
    So, why it may seem silly to some, this is actually a big deal for the government communications and outreach offices.

     

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12.  

    

    oregonnerd, Apr 12th, 2008 @ 6:15am

    
    

    Re: Re: Bits are the same as bytes... no?

    "Bits and Bytes are not the same. Bytes contain eight bits." Which was his point. You should have explained what a bit is, too, to be really thorough.
    --Glenn

     

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13.  

    

    Anonymous Coward, Apr 12th, 2008 @ 7:12am

    
    

    Re: YouTube videos and Congress

    "millenial" generation - another stupid tag
    
    Brought to you by a DC lobbyist.

     

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14.  

    

    Anonymous Coward, Apr 12th, 2008 @ 11:02am

    
    

    Re: Re: Re:

    "They didn't directly ask Youtube,..."
    
    The linked article only said that aids sent out a request, which I imagine could well have been in form of emails directly to the various video hosting sites. But if you have information to the contrary then please present it.

     

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15.  

    

    Anonymous Coward, Apr 12th, 2008 @ 12:14pm

    
    

    I'm happy when Congress wastes time on anything because that means they are spending less time passing bad laws.

     

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16.  

    

    Anonymous Coward, Apr 12th, 2008 @ 1:27pm

    
    

    Re:

    It's a good thing we don't get all the governmant that we pay for.
    
    or something like that

     

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17.  

    

    Anonymous Coward, Apr 12th, 2008 @ 10:20pm

    
    

    Re: Re:

    It's a good thing we don't get all the governmant that we pay for.
    
    I've always heard that we've got the very best politicians that money can buy.

     

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18.  

    

    Congress didn't make Youtube do anything, Apr 13th, 2008 @ 8:43pm

    
    

    My understanding of the issue is that YouTube was the only video host that submitted an ad free plan for congress to use when posting video.
    
    It was a voluntary act. They didn't have to submit any plan if they didn't want to.

     

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19.  

    

    Anonymous Coward, Apr 14th, 2008 @ 1:58am

    
    

    Re:

    It was a voluntary act. They didn't have to submit any plan if they didn't want to.
    
    No, of course not. By the way, isn't congress looking into the issue of network neutrality as it affects sites like Google and YouTube? Yeah, I thought so. Not that YouTube would care at all about that.

     

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20.  

    

    Anonymous Coward, Apr 14th, 2008 @ 10:35am

    
    

    What about IA?

    Last I checked, the Internet Archive 1) was a non-profit; 2) didn't have ads on their site and 3) hosted videos for free. Did Brewster Kahle get wind of this?

     

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