This guy is obviously not a parent - Kids will watch TV- and usually the same thing over an over. If this is mixed with reading to them and physical acticity it is not necessarily bad. Netflix allows kids to watch the rpetitive shows easily. Also, I have found it a great way to bond with my son - he loves when I sit down with him to watch G.I. Joe, Transformers and TMNT - what a blast to be able to share my favorites with him.
I'm sure for people employed in low level positions in these industries that this change is very scary. However, for people employed in the larger industries - communications for example, this is a good change. This article could be run every 20 years or so. When cars started to gain popularity there were probably a lot of articles about the poor street cleaners, wagon makers, and stable hands, and how the evil automobile tycoons were depriving them of work. I think the lesson is that people have to be able to change to keep up with technology. I doubt many would argue that we should go back to filthy, smelly, sh*t filled streets because all those poor horse related workers need jobs.
I use my phone in stores all the time for comparison shopping, shopping list building - or to get a consultation from my wife via text message. If any person in a store tried to take my phone to confiscate pictures I would use it to call the police instead. Stores need to embrace this, and maybe even provide devices to their employees to do their own comparisons. Any store that banned this would never get my business, no matter what their prices.
One reason fro the slow adoption of online books or resources is that they organize them the same way as a printed book - although computer, Kindle, and even the iPad are not as good at beings books as books are. However, we need to rethink how we prestn material in electronic form. The same goes for elearning - we limit ourselves to the knowledge of how classroom learning works - instead of taking advatnage of the unique properties and capabilites of electronic media.
One big drawback in pdf documents is that very few producers use bookmarks at all - and the lack of note taking capabilites is a serious drawback - Adobe needs to rethink this process before Google decides to and makes pdf a useless format.
Books replaced oral tradition - and I am sure that if humans had gone right from oral tradition directly to the printing press than the printed word might have been scrapped as overly technological and limited. It is the same with energy - we constantly try to replace fossil fuels by simply tying other sources into a system designed for the efficiencies of fossil fuels - ignoring the different capabilites and limitations.
New technologies sometimes require a new way of thinking about how we interact.
Actually - I believe that the anology to any suitcase is tenuous at best. Luggage left unattended in a public transportation station is most likely not protected from search by authorities - especially in this day and age. It is probably required for most unattended luggage to be searched.
In the case of the thumbdrive - it could be argued that the perosn who finds it is reasonably expected to look at the files to try and determine ownership. Or at the leat - semi-polite to see if perhaps pictures can be found that could help return the dirve to the owner. If the person who found it saw who left the drive than they probably should have jsut pulled it and handed it to the owner. However, when people find electronic devices - picture files are the most common place to find clues concerning ownership - which would explain why the pictures were found so easily.
Think back to the iPhone scandal - after a few months at the outrageous first price $699, Apple dropped the price by a few hundred bucks. What happened? The original buyers creamed bloody murder calling Steve Jobs horrible names and accusing him of ripping them off. He had to issue credits to those people to keep them from storming the Apple stores. Heck - even the Bible addresses this - the parable about the farmer who hires different workers at different times but pays them all the same is a great illustration of 1) Capitalism and 2)Comparative Compensation.
People don't want to feel like they were ripped off - but sometimes that is what happens - the electronics industry uses this model all the time - but they are usually smarter and change the model number before lowering the price. The fact is the first 42 inch flat panel TV's cost $20,000 - now they can be purchased for $500 and they are better.
If you spend your whole life looking over your shoulder to check if you were ripped off you will be very unhappy.
The Rainbow Coalition and Instituational Racism
Unions and unfair labor practices
ACLU and rights violations
These organizations just keep finding more and more minute unrelated examples to justify their existence. There are leagal structures, societal norms, and business pressures that make all of these issues rare and easily responded to by the buying public. How long would Wal-Mart last if it put a "Whites Only" sign on the front door? There would be no need for Jesse Jackson or the courts as the stock price plummeted and the stores emptied.
But wait - they did this all without help from the government - say it isn't so! C'mon they must just be greedy - they must use embedded digital signals to mind-control users. Or maybe they offer a superior product at a competitive price that is adjustable for real life market conditions. Hmmm.
Netflix uses similar features - like account suspension. If someone is goingg on vacation, experieincing difficulty, etc they can suspend their account. They don't get any rentals but their rankings, queue, etc. all remain intact until such time as they decide to resume their subscription. They can even make adjustments - they just don't get dvd's or the ability to view streaming.
What if a governement employee needs to share a large file with another government employee? Say a large PPT presentation which is too big to email? They can't use a thumb drive - as the usb ports should not be enabled for this on govt computers. They have to use file sharing - sharepoint server or ftp server. This bill will effect all of those - not just things like kazaa or others used publicly.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Andy.
Obviously not a parent
This guy is obviously not a parent - Kids will watch TV- and usually the same thing over an over. If this is mixed with reading to them and physical acticity it is not necessarily bad. Netflix allows kids to watch the rpetitive shows easily. Also, I have found it a great way to bond with my son - he loves when I sit down with him to watch G.I. Joe, Transformers and TMNT - what a blast to be able to share my favorites with him.
Dying Industries
I'm sure for people employed in low level positions in these industries that this change is very scary. However, for people employed in the larger industries - communications for example, this is a good change. This article could be run every 20 years or so. When cars started to gain popularity there were probably a lot of articles about the poor street cleaners, wagon makers, and stable hands, and how the evil automobile tycoons were depriving them of work. I think the lesson is that people have to be able to change to keep up with technology. I doubt many would argue that we should go back to filthy, smelly, sh*t filled streets because all those poor horse related workers need jobs.
Phones in stores
I use my phone in stores all the time for comparison shopping, shopping list building - or to get a consultation from my wife via text message. If any person in a store tried to take my phone to confiscate pictures I would use it to call the police instead. Stores need to embrace this, and maybe even provide devices to their employees to do their own comparisons. Any store that banned this would never get my business, no matter what their prices.
Reasons
One reason fro the slow adoption of online books or resources is that they organize them the same way as a printed book - although computer, Kindle, and even the iPad are not as good at beings books as books are. However, we need to rethink how we prestn material in electronic form. The same goes for elearning - we limit ourselves to the knowledge of how classroom learning works - instead of taking advatnage of the unique properties and capabilites of electronic media.
One big drawback in pdf documents is that very few producers use bookmarks at all - and the lack of note taking capabilites is a serious drawback - Adobe needs to rethink this process before Google decides to and makes pdf a useless format.
Books replaced oral tradition - and I am sure that if humans had gone right from oral tradition directly to the printing press than the printed word might have been scrapped as overly technological and limited. It is the same with energy - we constantly try to replace fossil fuels by simply tying other sources into a system designed for the efficiencies of fossil fuels - ignoring the different capabilites and limitations.
New technologies sometimes require a new way of thinking about how we interact.
Analogy
Actually - I believe that the anology to any suitcase is tenuous at best. Luggage left unattended in a public transportation station is most likely not protected from search by authorities - especially in this day and age. It is probably required for most unattended luggage to be searched.
In the case of the thumbdrive - it could be argued that the perosn who finds it is reasonably expected to look at the files to try and determine ownership. Or at the leat - semi-polite to see if perhaps pictures can be found that could help return the dirve to the owner. If the person who found it saw who left the drive than they probably should have jsut pulled it and handed it to the owner. However, when people find electronic devices - picture files are the most common place to find clues concerning ownership - which would explain why the pictures were found so easily.
Seen before
Think back to the iPhone scandal - after a few months at the outrageous first price $699, Apple dropped the price by a few hundred bucks. What happened? The original buyers creamed bloody murder calling Steve Jobs horrible names and accusing him of ripping them off. He had to issue credits to those people to keep them from storming the Apple stores. Heck - even the Bible addresses this - the parable about the farmer who hires different workers at different times but pays them all the same is a great illustration of 1) Capitalism and 2)Comparative Compensation.
People don't want to feel like they were ripped off - but sometimes that is what happens - the electronics industry uses this model all the time - but they are usually smarter and change the model number before lowering the price. The fact is the first 42 inch flat panel TV's cost $20,000 - now they can be purchased for $500 and they are better.
If you spend your whole life looking over your shoulder to check if you were ripped off you will be very unhappy.
More examples
The Rainbow Coalition and Instituational Racism
Unions and unfair labor practices
ACLU and rights violations
These organizations just keep finding more and more minute unrelated examples to justify their existence. There are leagal structures, societal norms, and business pressures that make all of these issues rare and easily responded to by the buying public. How long would Wal-Mart last if it put a "Whites Only" sign on the front door? There would be no need for Jesse Jackson or the courts as the stock price plummeted and the stores emptied.
No Bail-out
But wait - they did this all without help from the government - say it isn't so! C'mon they must just be greedy - they must use embedded digital signals to mind-control users. Or maybe they offer a superior product at a competitive price that is adjustable for real life market conditions. Hmmm.
Netflix uses similar features - like account suspension. If someone is goingg on vacation, experieincing difficulty, etc they can suspend their account. They don't get any rentals but their rankings, queue, etc. all remain intact until such time as they decide to resume their subscription. They can even make adjustments - they just don't get dvd's or the ability to view streaming.
Re:
Silicon is an element - mined - not a petroleum product. It is actually the most abundant mineral in the Earth's crust.
Re:
What if a governement employee needs to share a large file with another government employee? Say a large PPT presentation which is too big to email? They can't use a thumb drive - as the usb ports should not be enabled for this on govt computers. They have to use file sharing - sharepoint server or ftp server. This bill will effect all of those - not just things like kazaa or others used publicly.