CommonSense's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
from the it's-just-common-sense dept
This week's "favorites" post comes from the aptly-named CommonSense. Who can disagree with a little CommonSense?
I was starting to think that this day might never come. I've had an insightful comment show up in that weekly post before, and I've even been told by one of my favorite commenters turned contributor, Dark Helmet, that I was basketball stupid (at least he noticed me, right??....more importantly, at least the Heat LOST!). But with my sometimes sporadic comments coming in surges, I wondered if I had what it took to be a chosen one, and reveal for the world what my favorite posts of the week really were. Alas, here I am. I'm going to do things a little bit different, and show you all some of the main reasons I visit this site. This week there were a lot of good posts - I currently have 25 tabs open, each to an article I hope to mention - and many of them touch similar topics, each with different bits of information, or different viewpoints. Let's get started.
- To start, I bring to everyone's attention the post: Finnish Police Respond To The Norwegian Tragedy By Increasing Internet Surveillance
This post did a few things for me, least of which was to remind me that the U.S. isn't the only country that suffers from some corrupt, power hungry leaders who would sink so low as to use a massive tragedy to gain more power for themselves. My parents taught me something important when I was younger -- that you should never make important decisions in the heat of the moment. Emotions cloud judgement. Gandhi didn't become who he was because of magic, it was because he was able to separate his actions from his emotions. Here in America, we haven't really been doing that lately and I feel that we are paying a heavy price (Is Your Senator Using the Distraction of the Debt Ceiling to Support the Feds Secret Interpretation of Spying Laws?, Wyden Continues to Press Intelligence Officials About Tracking American Under 'Secret' Interpretation of the Patriot Act, Intelligence Chief to Wyden: It Would be Difficult to Reveal What You Want Us to Reveal Because We Don't Want to Reveal It). I've mentioned before that I don't believe it's possible to catch ALL instances of terrorism or malicious actions in general (Looking at Security Theater Through the Lens of the Utøya Massacre). There are just some people in the world who have a desire to cause harm; always have been and always will be. Ben Franklin said it best: "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." -
When a society lets its government take the knee jerk approach and react with emotion instead of reason, we get the exact scenario Franklin predicts:
Canadian Officials Censoring Scientists Whose Results They Don't Like
UK Court Orders BT to Block Access to Usenet Site Hollywood Hates
China Monitors WiFi, US Takes Notes?
House Committee Approves 'Keep Every American's Digital Data for Submission to the Federal Government Without a Warrant Act of 2011'
There we are, clear as day, with the U.S. government acting almost exactly like the Chinese government we hear our officials condemn so often. The only difference is that China is open about monitoring live communications (didn't Obama promise to be more open???), while our government tries to hide it with what could seriously be compared to the 7 second delay. As long as they're not listening while we're having the conversation, it's cool, right? Hollywood is in the U.S., isn't it? So why are they controlling UK courts, and why would Canadian officials be mimicking their behavior? Luckily, they don't have enough money to give to everyone in the world (Mexican Senate Calls On President To Reject ACTA) or else this might start happening everywhere: 54-Year Old School Teacher Who Doesn't Know How To Download Movies First To Be Kicked Off The Internet In France.
I was told by a wise man once, DeInter Nett was his name, that an older definition, since replaced, of fascism, defined it as the "Authoritarian merging of government and industry". The point was that high level people, many of them with familiar sounding last names, moved swiftly between government and industry positions. There weren't any specific posts touching that exact topic this week, but what we see above are definitely symptoms of a problem that seems eerily familiar to that definition. - Now, I don't only visit this site for the depressing news. I'm here for the same reason I watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, to get a taste of the news that matters, various viewpoints on said news, and, occasionally, a laugh. I laugh when people get what they deserve: ABC Sports Threatens To Hit Tim Pawlenty With Copyright Infringement Claim Over Miracle On Ice Footage (maybe you should think about those unintended consequences to the laws you want so badly??), and I laugh when companies repeatedly make the wrong decisions again and again: Fox Decides To Drive Fans To Piracy, Rather Than Giving Legitimate Options (Mr. Nett also told me once that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results...). I value real education, which involves debate, discussion, differing views, and anything BUT a closed up, one-sided, piece of propaganda, so I was very thankful to see this post from Tim: If Your Comment Section Is Awesome, It's Your Community's Fault. And I'm always thankful when a post goes up showing that there are people out there who still understand what it means to be civilized: How Should Law Enforcement Handle Being Filmed? Officer Lyons Provides The Perfect Example.
Re: Re: Re:
so far...
As recently as 10 years ago only 34% of Americans thought that Marijuana should be legal, while 64% said it should be illegal. The most recent data I saw shows 48% now think it should be legal, with only 50% still claiming it should be illegal.
The United States of America did not cement its status as an independent nation overnight just by signing the declaration and telling the King it was so... Progress takes time...education takes time...
Re: Re: Re: Re:
People also tried to say that the housing bubble would never burst either, and we were dreaming if we thought real estate investments were bad...
If there's one thing we've learned from our history in a capitalist system, it's that all bubbles burst eventually.
Seems familiar...
Wait, isn't this the moment when we hear that voice in the background go:
"FINISH HIM!!!"
:-)
Re:
I'd also add for the people trying to downplay it as "big deal, they hacked an old site" that, hey, you noticed it didn't you? Maybe they took down that site, because they wanted to be heard, more so than do harm...like a warning shot or something.
Re:
I agree that they use it as a tool to gain popularity, but that popularity is a double edged sword. They have to be popular enough with the public to get votes, but also popular enough with the people who fund campaigns so that they can run. They probably really did mean everything in the report, until someone told them they make a lot of money for taking it down (or lose money for not taking it down..)
"All they have to do is be willing to tell some Hollywood lobbyists to pipe down."
Honestly, Obama should do exactly that now that he doesn't need anything from Hollywood to win his next election. Kind of stinks that we always seem to need to wait for someone to stop campaigning in order to take a stand for the people...
Re: Re: Re: Ok - I'm confused.
A combination of " Don't tax companies in an effort to tax rich people." and the next proposal where it says to impose a consumption tax as an alternative source...
Re: Re: Hmmm
Also, ending the "war" on marijuana might save enough money all by itself to eliminate the need for the income tax. After all, we're not just fighting the "enemy" in that "war," we're then providing them all with room and board after they've lost a battle....only to set them free to fight in more battles. If that's not the definition of a war you can't win, I don't know what is.
Re:
I see it as Craigslist is cutting itself out of the market by doing things like this.
PadMapper isn't stealing listed adds, it seems exactly like a specialized search engine that displays some factual info and a link to the original posting. It's got other cool features too, but that's beside the point. I'd bet PadMapper's goal isn't to disrupt and take customers away from Craigslist at all, in fact, I'd bet that they hope Craigslist stays around for a while so that they can still be useful. But I'd also bet that they don't want to limit their information database to Craigslist either. If you look at the real world, Craigslist isn't popular in all areas of the United States, and I don't know for sure, but I'd have to figure that in at least some of those areas, there is a different local site that does something similar.
I think that if Craigslist were smart, they'd try and partner up with these types of sites...make it mutually beneficial for the companies that users post any and everything on Craigslist in order for it to show up in all of the most popular search sites on the web (Google, PadMapper, 3taps, etc.). It's really up to Craigslist to keep people interested in posting their stuff there, and I think limiting the people who view Craigslist data to only visitors of the real site while all these other sites with cool features pop up all over (ESPECIALLY if your site isn't EVER getting any better...) is basically putting a noose around the company's neck.
I agree with you to a degree on 3Taps though. They are likely to be hoping to take users from Craigslist...but mostly because they are a site with better features. No one would be out there wanting to copy Craigslist data and make it more usable if Craigslist would make it more useful itself. Maybe the smarter thing would have been (or hopefully their next move will be) to make a "better"list(.com?) that does interface with sites of the future.
Truth is...the time for holding back innovation is over. It's get on the train, or get out of the way time.
Re:
Yes, I agree that it was good. I think it was a good advertisement for how bad "anti-piracy" laws have become... When someone tries to tell you that you have to go a website to make sure you're visiting the right websites....we've gone too far...
That friggin guy...
By now, the world should realize that if that asshole (You Rupert, Rupert Murdoch) is in favor of any form of legislation, we need to take a second, and third look at it. This would be like the guys in charge of Enron during that scandal coming out to lobby for a new energy bill so that they could get back in the game... We should know that there are NO good intentions behind it.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Right, so think of it this way:
If you have security, and it doesn't stop something, so you ramp up security and it still doesn't stop that something, then the ramped up security is all theater.
That's the point here, a certain level does scare away some would-be criminals, but there is almost no stopping someone who's really got their heart set on causing problems.
Re: Re: Re:
Or "Damn, your LED headlights are too bright in that truck, are you sure you're not pointing your high beams at me?! Please double check!!!"
Re:
It is....because the recording industry can't make money from music due to piracy....they're left trying to make money from drugs...
Re:
Been a while since you went to an NFL game huh? It's $10 beers and $8 hot dogs now....gotta pay for the security somehow.
Re:
So if I told you not to kill someone because you might get caught.....you're trying to tell me I'd be breaking the law???
Re:
I agree with you. I still keep my old original Xbox in the closet just in case I have to play a DVD, but honestly, compared to the streaming offering from Netflix, DVD's are a pain in the ass. I'd rather torrent something and copy it to a flash drive to plug into my Roku so I can watch it on my TV than dig out the DVD player...and I don't usually torrent things. I never even had the DVD offering from Netflix, so this whole change doesn't effect me. I can understand a bit of anger at the price hike, but let's be real here: Comcast offers a $99 one year deal when you sign up, and after that year it shoots up to almost or over double that, depending on what options you have. The fact that you got both streaming and DVD's from Netflix for as long as you did should buy them a bit of leeway...especially since we ALL KNOW the more successful they got, the more they'd be "taxed" by hollywood...
Re: Re:
I don't think the guys who founded Napster had a crystal clear goal of breaking the law to make tons of money with no risk of losing any... I understand what you're saying, and if we hold one accountable it could have negative side effects for others, but I think there are two very different situations here, and hopefully the law can distinguish between them so as to only go after the Righthaven's of the world...those criminals who believe they are smart enough to work around the law and cover their tracks so as to not risk any penalties for their egregious acts...
In Napster's case, people were sharing mixed tapes like nobody's business, people were burning and sharing mixed CD's already, and none of those people were being sued. That they saw this, and simply wanted to make it easier to do the same sharing that was already going on kind of takes the "they knew before hand that it was illegal, and they willfully broke the law to make a bunch of money" argument off the table...it was a couple of college kids and not certified lawyers ya know...
Re: Golden Goose
The Pirate Bay???
If Starz doesn't want me to watch Spartacus for a reasonable price, I may just have to not pay for it. I won't pay Comcast for a basic package, and then pay them even more for Starz, especially if Spartacus is the only thing from Starz I want to watch. I have absolutely NO problem with, and I'm even a little excited to, pay Netflix the $8/month for access to Starz content. If Netflix even had to compartmentalize the Starz offering, and charge an extra $2/month or something, I'd still have no problem paying the then $10/month. What I do have a problem with, is paying Comcast so much more than that, for them to provide a far worse viewing experience, for them to include a bunch of crap that I would rather pay them NOT to provide, for them to then charge me an extra, still larger, fee to include the same Starz programming that Netflix was trying to include.
To Starz, HBO and Showtime:
Get out of bed with Cable providers, you can reach a lot more people that way, and with more customers, you can make more money. You're not helping yourselves out any.
Re: Re: Re:
There is no bigger issue, there is only then and there, there is only that moment when a terrorist HAS decided to bring danger to the airport. And when that happens, and they get through to hijack/blow up/take over a plane, and they make it through the TSA checkpoints in a wheelchair for $20 (they had to be generous, so the dumb bitch wouldn't think twice) and it's your family killed in the next attack after your wife had to get sexually violated to get on board that plane which she died on, when all of that happens, will you still be championing the effectiveness of this theater?
Re:
Why, might I ask, do you think the airplanes will be empty??? I know over half a dozen close friends who haven't flied since the TSA was introduced, and won't fly again until they are gone. Tell me, if they finally feel good about going back to the airport, buying a ticket and flying somewhere, why would their plane be emptier than it was when they refused to fly???