Did you hear about the UK councillor who tweeted about Scientology ?
I think the best argument for sanctions of any sort in these "loose text" cases is that the tweeter's actions show very poor judgement / stupidity and that is generally not something I want in an elected official.
For example, politician's extra marital affair is revealed.
Should he step down ?
Is he hypocritical (maybe campaigned on family values ?)
Is he untrustworthy ? (who said any of them were trustworthy
Wrong questions IMHO. The right questions are
- Is he really concentrating on his job since this story broke ? I'd expect the job requires his full attention and who can give that with the media on their front lawn ?
- Did he really think he could keep this a secret ? Is he a moron ? What kind of idiot have we elected ?
So in an indeal world (for me) free speech would be preserved, but the voters would kick him out for having poor judgement. Or maybe he'd be deselected for bringing the House into disrepute.
You know, less than a year ago the daily Telegraph was listing chapter and verse of the MP expenses scandal.
Things that could get you and me arrested (certainly fired) for fraud got all but 4 (maybe 2) pols a "smack on the wrist".
So to turn round and jail an MP now for a loose mouth would seem rather disproportionate.
Strangely, though, voters don't seem to punish stupid remarks when they agree with them.
Try getting more than 50% of US to admit that the "Mission Accomplished" banner was stupid, for example.
If I write to my representative, that's OK.
If a million people in my state write to their representative, that might create a DoS . Are they all liable ? Or is it only the ringleader (it's unlikely to happen by chance) ?
If I encourage people to write to their representative to protest a crappy law and 1 million people do so am I guilty of orchestrating a DoS ?
(Assuming I'm not daft enough to suggest that they do it for that reason).
I know that organisations such as Amnesty and Avaaz have campaigns where they encourage people to email/call/fax some evil official in a far away land over some applaing crime against someone. Is that a DoS attack ? I'd have thought that it doesn't take many faxes to render someone's fax line useless.
Now a DDoS is a different matter - that implies control over a bot network without lots of PC owners' permission, but wasn't there that Israeli company that allowed you to effectively opt in as part of a protest network - running their software meant they used your PC as part of a mass protest against spammers' sites.
Would that guy have been jailed in the USA ?
Or is it only a crime when it's against the government ?
Only problem with this ruling (IMHO) is that not enough people know about it.
But in this case the child is clearly underage.
I don't think the "per image" amount is appropriate.
I just think that proven deliberate possession of any such photos (whether 1 or 100) that are clearly of underage children should attract a fine big enough to totally bankrupt the offender (which might need to be higher for a muillionaire) and that the proceeds should mostly find their way to the victim.
And this potential penalty should be very widely known.
Penalties should be based on punishment, justice being seen to be done and deterrence.
Without viewers of child porn there'd be no industry.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Put this in context...
-- you're wrong in stating that there are no gun shops in the UK.
--
True, a farmer with a legitimate reason and the approval of the local chief constable can obtain a shotgun. And target shooting sportsmen can (or could, maybe not since Dunblane) obtain sport shooting items that are supposed to be kept at the gun club. Perhaps hunters in Scotland can go into an outdoor pursuits shop and buy a single shot rifle.
But by "gun shop" I guess I meant a high street outlet where you can go and browse handguns, semi automatic weapons etc.
And I'm pretty sure you could not come and find me one of those in the UK.
When I lived in a non rural part of the USA, by contrast, I could easily tell you where my nearest place was.
-- um, and in your little Utopia, would people also not have: knives, baseball bats, axes, saws, ice picks, screwdrivers, cars, etc... In other words, we only have soft fluffy things that can't possibly be used as weapons? --
I think we all know that a gun is not like other weapons. With a gun a small cowardly person can kill a person from tens of yards away, in a manner they never would if they had to do it with (say) a baseball bat.
I've been on a range and seen how people can change when they are able to annihilate a target with a handgin from 40 yeards. It's projected power and they feel bigger.
Those other items you list have uses beyond killing people.
Maybe it's about context. If I see a guy in the park with a baseball bat, he's maybe playing baseball. If he walks into a bank with it (or with a large axe, say) I might expect the security guard to want to keep an eye on him.
If he tries to get on a plane with a screwdriver, they'll stop him.
But what is the "normal" context for someone walking along openly carrying a gun ?
On a plane ? Hopefully not. In an employment tribunal ? In a mall ? Outside a school when picking up the kids ? In a local government building ?
At a political rally ?
Me learning "safe gun handling" would be like me learning to land an airliner. Probably NEVER going to be relevant in my entire life in the UK.
- On the one hand the UK laws are hopelessly draconian, largely based on political perception and knee-jerk reaction to tragedies and at least in part pointless and removing of freedom. --
Removing of freedom ?
I agree that
- too many laws are made based on response to rare and unrepresentative events
- they may be less effective than many imagine them to be.
But I think you'd struggle to find a majority in the UK who feel "unfree" because guns are not freely legal and available.
I have no desire to carry a gun, and don't feel any need. It's enough of a pain carrying a wallet, keys and phone.
Apart from the armed police at an airport, I could go through my whole life without seeing a gun in the flesh.
So what on earth would I want to carry a gun for ? Based on actual risk I should perhaps carry a meteorite warning device too.
Carrying a gun because one day I might meet someone with a gun is no better than making laws based on really rare events.
And if my next door neighbour told me that he DID want to carry a gun, he'd probably be on my list of people who shouldn't be allowed to. I mean, what does he want to do, shoot someone ? Jeez, the guy must be a looney.
So someone from the USA might look at the UK and think we are being denied a key freedom, but we might conversely look at the level of guncrime in the USA and be glad the way we are. And we might both be right or both wrong.
Perhaps in the USA things have already gone so far that you WOULD be safer all carrying guns. But that's (IMHO) not the case in the UK.
Disclosure
I lived in the USA for 4 years, starting just before 9/11.
-- my ideal world is one in which the majority of people openly carry weapons. Children grow up with weapon safety, and everyone's really, really polite --
Sounds like a world where noone trusts anyone.
What about an ideal world where there are no guns and everyone is really polite ?
Really, if you're going to start from scratch and build an ideal world, your vision of ideal is pretty grim.
-- In America, terrorist videos are not illegal.
They might be in the UK. --
We do have laws against inciting racial or religious hatred.
What is far more worthy of discussion is where you draw the line. Pointing out the civilian death toll in Iraq might make people hate the coalition countries but it's a matter of fact and presumably shouldn't be censored.
Telling people to go out and stab their MP (and I'm not suggesting that this has ever happened) would definitely take you over the line in the UK.
But when you explore the space in between, it's going to be pretty hard to find a clear line in the sand that everyone can agree on.
My point about heroin and guns was that many people in governments believe that they can reduce the amount of something that will be found in society by making it harder to get at (cf "the war on drugs").
This belief is held whether the thing is legal or illegal.
In the UK there is an ongoing discussion about increasing the price of alcohol to reduce "binge drinking". And removing coke machines from schools to stop kids getting fat. These are both legal but in both cases the suggestion is that if it's harder to get there'll be less of it.
The same rationale applies to the very high UK tax on cigarettes. If it was JUST to raise money then economists would no doubt suggest lowering the rate would increase the overall take.
Many people of course do NOT agree with this. Going after the drug supply raises the price and potentially makes drug related crime more profitable. And it is also argued by some that the war on drugs has simply not worked. Without a change in demand, it is futile.
But politicians play to the gallery and always seem to have to look tough.
So coming back to my original point, Mike seemed to express surprise that anyone would believe a youtube ban on terrorist vids would address the problem.
And my post was simply saying this
- there are plenty of people currently in the UK who think vids alone can radicalise someone (probably due as Rose correctly says to poor reporting of a recent event)
- there are people in all countries who believe you can reduce consumption of undesireable things by going after the supply (rather than the demand)
- stopping youtube is a not insignificant step in that direction
- So why is Mike surprised ? There's actually a fairly clear rationale behind such actions (whether or not you agree with it).
I should also say that I believe there's a big difference between a subtle, almost documentary style video aimed at building hatred of a government and one showing a beheading (which I would contend would never be used to "win supporters", but to simply excite the converts).
You might consider banning both of these, but probably for different reasons.
-- SO, a criminal being able to get a hold of a gun etc is perfectly fine. A citizen being able to be on the same footing makes them a crazed shooter...WTF is wrong with you. In everything we do there will always be borders and removing good tools from strong citizens is the story of a dictator --
Sorry I didn't read this closely enough first time round.
We clearly disagree because you maybe think everyone having a gun would make the place safer (citizens defending themselves etc) whereas I tend to believe the fewer guns the better, even if only the very bad guys and the few armed police had them.
If a mugger with a gun meets an unarmed person in an alley, chances are someone will lose their wallet.
But if both are armed, someone will probably get shot and it won't always be the one you might hope.
We had a guy go on the rampage recently in the north of England. Shot > 20 people. The authorities say that nothing in his history and his gun ownership applications would have given any clues that he was not safe.
However, there are many people (myself included) who would say that the very fact that a taxi driver wants to own multiple guns is itself a sign of mental imbalance in itself.
Often I hear people say after a Columbine style event that if more citizens had guns it would have saved lives but I also note that for long periods (maybe hours) these situations are shrouded in utter confusion with noone (including the police) knowing quite where or who the shooters are.
I would contend that it is an equally valid point of view that if lots of people had guns in these situations there would be potentially worse chaos with scared people shooting wildly at each other.
So I favour a world where there are no legal guns and heavy penalties for people caught with illegal ones.
Kids would not get accidentally shot with the gun they found under dad's bed. Disgruntled high school kids would simply not have easy access to a family weapon.
The few people with guns (the very bad guys) would indeed have an advantage but we do have armed police when required.
In the British model, armed police are a handpicked subset who are thought to be mentally capable of handling the responsibility. Most police are unarmed. They chase bad guys down on foot rather than shooting them in the back between donut breaks in the cruiser. And we in the UK like it that way.
But it's just my point of view and I'd defend to the death your right to completely disagree with me.
-- SO, a criminal being able to get a hold of a gun etc is perfectly fine --
Not at all. My point was that you go for low hanging fruit first. If there are no gun shops people have to work that little bit harder to get a gun, but noone pretends that this means there are no guns.
As in the USA and many countries, heroin is not available in the supermarket (though people can find it somewhere if they try hard enough) because the perception is that if it was EASY to get then a lot more people would get it.
It may be wrong (many argue the approach is futile) but it's how many currenmt laws are made.
Hence the mindset of the authorities (which I attempted to explain, but not defend, though Rose Welch seems to think it is my point of view) that says take the easy stuff out first (hate inciting videos on youtube) and hope that this will at least reduce the problem.
And regarding the news story about the woman stabbing the MP. I am sure Rose is right and she was not radicalised by 3 months of videos, but THAT IS WHAT THE UK TABLOIDS ARE IMPLYING. Hence that is what public opinion thinks. Hence that is what politicians are pandering to.
As I said, I'm trying to shed light on the politicians behaviour, not defend or agree with it.
There's a difference.
In the UK we have just had in the news the case of a young muslim woman who visited her Member of Parliament in what is referred to as his "surgery" (weekly or monthly meeting when a constituent gets to meet their elected representative face to face and discuss anything on their mind) and stabbed him several times.
The stabbing was in protest at the way he voted in Parliament back in 2002/2003 regarding the Iraq war.
What has surprised many people is that this young woman was smart, educated and yet had (apparently) become radicalised in a few short months entirely by exposure to videos on websites.
Her radicalisation was not attributed to attendance of a radical mosque or attendance of a trainign camp, JUST the videos.
So it is understandable that the authorities want to try and minimise chances of this recurring.
Google (who purportedly don't want to be evil) can be politely asked to help by removing videos from YouTube. If they were also asked to not link in searches to such content on other websites I would imagine this would make quite a dent in the amount of stuff easily accessible to people.
Not so easy to ask the Jihadists to remove such content from their sites, obviously.
Though I have absolutely no grounds for saying this I'd wager than a huge proportion of internet users are fairly lazy. If they don't find it in YouTube or via a google search they might stop looking.
And remember, the worry is not about whether committed Jihadists can find these videos - they are already radicalised. It is normal people stumbling into them and becoming radicalised that the authorities fear.
To see an example of the effect they fear, look for any YouTube video concerning the events of 9/11 and the follow the trail of associated videos and pretty soon you'll be watching some fairly virulent (and inflammatory) conspiracy theory stuff.
I'm sure this is what they fear, an innocent(ish) video concerning some social issue relevant to muslims, that links progressively and subtley into stuff that makes you absolutely hate key western governments, and which motivates you to take some action.
You're right that this won't get rid of the stuff, but it will make the average person a bit less likely to be dragged into it.
Here's an other example. Guns in the UK. A criminal can no doubt find one fairly easily, as he/she might know someone with connections. But as there are no gun shops and no normal route for going out and buying a weapon, your average law abiding citizen would not know where to even start looking for one. Which makes it just that little bit harder for a normal citizen to become a crazed shooter.
I beg to differ. if clicking on an adword link took you directly to the advertiser's website this would be true, but it takes you through a google process which allows them to count it and bill the advertiser. THEN it takes you to the advertiser's website.
So Google choose exactly what to send at that point.
I type in "lace underwear for men".
Someone has bought the keywords "lace underwear", and I get to see their ad.
But when I click their ad, they don't just see that their ad triggered on the keywords "lace underwear", they actually see that I came to their site from a google results page for the string "lace underwear for men".
Is that the problem ?
Jeez, the guy has too much time on his hands.
The REAL issue would be if
a) google started giving people access to the search strings their ad was shown for, not just those it was clicked thru for. But I'm sure they never will because
1. It is evil and also stupid
2. The amount of data they'd be handing over would be enormous and no-one would want to have to deal with it (esp as it is so unqualified)
b) google passed other info that they know about you too (say an email address if you're signed into gmail or whatever else they know, maybe even a cell phone number for mobile searches).
Again, this would be
1. Evil
2. Stupid
c) google included your GPS coords (for a search from a phone) without you having had a very clear opt in first. Of course, this might be implied if the adverstiser has asked for his ad to be selectively shown...
The problem is not actually with google (on whom public gaze is permanently trained) but people offering similar services through apps that might have far access more personal info and which may not work anything like a good old fashioned browser. Not nearly as many people keeping them honest.
What I think google SHOULD do with adwords is include in their quality score a "rapid return" clause. That is, if I click through an ad and within 5 seconds I have reversed back to the results page or come straight back for another search, then I probably did not find what I wanted, and the landing site may not be offering what the ad taster implied. And it would be OK to pass that info to the advertiser, IMHO, so they could learn from their mistake.
My 4 year old invented a new dog lead last week.
It's actually a walkie talkie watch with a tiny counterpart on the dog's collar. You speak commands into it and they come out on the collar in dog language. Thus he understands what you want and happily obeys. No need for the old fashioned "length of rope" technology.
The point I'm making is that he happily assumes that either this is easy or that it soon will be. In fact he wants me to build it some weekend soon. He (and I suspect most kids) have a view of modern tech that is pretty close to magic and are not phased by any of it.
40 years ago before he died my dad told 6 year old me "it'll be easy for your generation, unlike me you can just watch television without worrying about how on earth it works".
Not sure that motto would hold true if they were caught rear ending someone due to a software failure while the test driver was dozing.
In the google view of the future
- would you ask the car to drive you to your friends house but end up at a different person's house because they had a better quality score ?
- would SEO's be paid by the number of driverless cars that arrive at your business address ?
- could you do an image search of someone attractive and get driven straight to a place where he/she or someone algorithmically similar could be found ?
- will robotic cars all run on android ? I always thought modern cars needed more chrome...
- if you drive for a while with the car's security system disabled, will you end up with a trunk full of cookies ?
- does Spam cause your car to keep driving to a penis enlargment clinic when you wanted to go some where else entirely ? Or to Canada when you asked for Walgreens ?
- Will the RIAA be able to impound your car if you drive to a friend's house and listen to his music ?
- If you have no parking where you live, can you store your vehicle in the cloud ?
It's a brave new world.
I'm not looking forward to the Bing equivalent.
Micropayment can work if it's "micro" and convenient.
"Registration walls" tend to stop people in their tracks even when there is no charge, so it's not a money thing. I pay for wired magazine through my door (it's free online) but balk at free registration walls because they get in the way when I have no time (ie at the moment I am trying to read them). I pay for Economist subscription because they give me it all in MP3 form to listen to when walking the dog.
We pay for convenience and added value.
Someone should have the sense to develop micropayment that is so tiny financially as to be trivial, so that the only problem is the inconvenience. Then work on (and improve) the inconvenience aspect relentlessly till it works. Then let it spread until it becomes the norm.
then, down the line,(when no-one can remember a time before it) raise prices gradually. By then it will be a true friction free market and people will be able to vote for value with their feet.
By convenient I mean "built into the browser".
With crowdsourced ratings for articles that learn what you like and steer you to content you'll also like.
Effectively what google already invisibly does for web content. News will become like any other content. But some content (news or otherwise) will be free and some will cost a fraction of a cent. Dross will be voted out of sight, like a crap website in the search rankings. Quality will rise to the top and free market real time pricing will allow the microprice to reflect that.
My time to read a news article costs money. $1 for 5 minutes at least.
I'd rather spend a cent to know in advance that the article is worth my time, than waste 5 minutes for free finding it's not.
I'd like a system clever enough, for example (from related user feedback) to know that if I've already read X then Y will tell me nothing new.
But it can't happen in a single overnight leap.
Murdoch etc want us to make a step change and his product isn't good enough.
If the loss of traffic was only 90% he'd be laughing. I mean, 10% of millions is a lot of paying traffic.
A lot of early "free" stuff on the web went from free to charging and hoped to hold onto 10% . I'me sure services like Logmein, AVG anti virus, etc would be overjoyed if only 90% of their users opted for the free version of their product.
But if it's free somewhere else, people will eventually find out when they see the costs add up.
I see no future for newspapers. But I can see a future for reporters, if they can sell timely copyrighted content to outlets who are prepared to contribute something (when there are no newspaper sites left to link to).
Reporting of plain facts will be mostly crowdsourced. Opinion and analysis (ie added value) will be bought by websites from contributors to differentiate their sites.
I know of a private doctor's forum where there are definitely comments made that if revealed to a wider audience might seem unwise. Why they believe it is securely private I cannot imagine.
Went to a town called Morlaix. Lovely centre, sunny day, what better time to eat out in the shadow of the imposing viaduct.
There are several big squares, all with parking.
Now they know that there is a fair amount of demand for parking all day (people want to park near where they work) but a huge amount of demand at lunchtime.
If they were rampant capitalists, they'd hike the prices at lunchtime. Instead, they keep prices high most of the day and then make it free to park 12-2. This misses out on a huge slice of lunchtime car parking revenue, but encourages people to come into town to eat lunch at the cafes and restauraunt.
That's what I expect from a municipal authority that actually understands what they are there for - to look at the big picture for the whole town, not just monetize some land they own.
The idea that people value software more based on price is total crap. This is utility stuff, not a Gucci purse.
When a new version of Office comes out , do I think
"Wow, a few hundred bucks ? That must really add value to my business because it's highly priced. For a moment I suspected it was a waste of my money buying features I don't need when I thought it was going to cost fifty bucks but now I see it is $290 I realise now it is far more useful.
No, I think one of 4 things
1. Wonder if it starts up any quicker ? (you'd think I'd have learnt by now)
2. I wonder if they fixed that stupid bug with styles that appeared in word 6 yet
3. Shit, soon my sheeplike customers will upgrade and my current version will need updating for no apparent reason
4. Oh great, Open Office supports the new file format already. Maybe this is the time when I finally switch off MS Office for good, since the free import filter doesn't actually correctly open network shared files for editing anyway.
Many software upgrades are not because they are required or to move closer to customer's needs (or else software would get smaller and faster with continuous improvement). They are to give an excuse for extracting more revenue from a plateauing market.
What most people need from a Word processor is far simpler than any of the front runners. If I had office 97 but with ODF capability it would be more than I needed.
It seems that only google documents of the major players actually gets that.
I value some of my cheap (but excellent) software far more than some of my heavy weight stuff.
And ask MS if they'd rather every pirated copy of Office became a copy of OpenOffice overnight. Definitely not, they need to keep up user share even if it is not paid market share.
You also wrote "every automation reduces jobs".
Only true in the actual factory itself. Make a country more productive through automation, and more industry will locate there, as well as standards of living rising.
Conversely, would taking all the car assembly robots out of Detroit and making them assemble cars by hand reduce unemployment ? I think not.
On the post: UK Politician Arrested For Being A Jerk On Twitter
Think this is bad ?
On the post: 30 Months In Prison For Denial Of Service Hit On Politicians' Websites
Let me get this straight
If a million people in my state write to their representative, that might create a DoS . Are they all liable ? Or is it only the ringleader (it's unlikely to happen by chance) ?
If I encourage people to write to their representative to protest a crappy law and 1 million people do so am I guilty of orchestrating a DoS ?
(Assuming I'm not daft enough to suggest that they do it for that reason).
I know that organisations such as Amnesty and Avaaz have campaigns where they encourage people to email/call/fax some evil official in a far away land over some applaing crime against someone. Is that a DoS attack ? I'd have thought that it doesn't take many faxes to render someone's fax line useless.
Now a DDoS is a different matter - that implies control over a bot network without lots of PC owners' permission, but wasn't there that Israeli company that allowed you to effectively opt in as part of a protest network - running their software meant they used your PC as part of a mass protest against spammers' sites.
Would that guy have been jailed in the USA ?
Or is it only a crime when it's against the government ?
On the post: The Problems With Letting Child Porn Victims Demand Cash From Those Caught With Their Images
It's called a nuclear deterrent
But in this case the child is clearly underage.
I don't think the "per image" amount is appropriate.
I just think that proven deliberate possession of any such photos (whether 1 or 100) that are clearly of underage children should attract a fine big enough to totally bankrupt the offender (which might need to be higher for a muillionaire) and that the proceeds should mostly find their way to the victim.
And this potential penalty should be very widely known.
Penalties should be based on punishment, justice being seen to be done and deterrence.
Without viewers of child porn there'd be no industry.
On the post: YouTube, Once Again, Pressured To Remove Terrorist Videos; Feel Any Safer?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Put this in context...
--
True, a farmer with a legitimate reason and the approval of the local chief constable can obtain a shotgun. And target shooting sportsmen can (or could, maybe not since Dunblane) obtain sport shooting items that are supposed to be kept at the gun club. Perhaps hunters in Scotland can go into an outdoor pursuits shop and buy a single shot rifle.
But by "gun shop" I guess I meant a high street outlet where you can go and browse handguns, semi automatic weapons etc.
And I'm pretty sure you could not come and find me one of those in the UK.
When I lived in a non rural part of the USA, by contrast, I could easily tell you where my nearest place was.
On the post: YouTube, Once Again, Pressured To Remove Terrorist Videos; Feel Any Safer?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Put this in context...
I think we all know that a gun is not like other weapons. With a gun a small cowardly person can kill a person from tens of yards away, in a manner they never would if they had to do it with (say) a baseball bat.
I've been on a range and seen how people can change when they are able to annihilate a target with a handgin from 40 yeards. It's projected power and they feel bigger.
Those other items you list have uses beyond killing people.
Maybe it's about context. If I see a guy in the park with a baseball bat, he's maybe playing baseball. If he walks into a bank with it (or with a large axe, say) I might expect the security guard to want to keep an eye on him.
If he tries to get on a plane with a screwdriver, they'll stop him.
But what is the "normal" context for someone walking along openly carrying a gun ?
On a plane ? Hopefully not. In an employment tribunal ? In a mall ? Outside a school when picking up the kids ? In a local government building ?
At a political rally ?
Me learning "safe gun handling" would be like me learning to land an airliner. Probably NEVER going to be relevant in my entire life in the UK.
On the post: YouTube, Once Again, Pressured To Remove Terrorist Videos; Feel Any Safer?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Put this in context...
Removing of freedom ?
I agree that
- too many laws are made based on response to rare and unrepresentative events
- they may be less effective than many imagine them to be.
But I think you'd struggle to find a majority in the UK who feel "unfree" because guns are not freely legal and available.
I have no desire to carry a gun, and don't feel any need. It's enough of a pain carrying a wallet, keys and phone.
Apart from the armed police at an airport, I could go through my whole life without seeing a gun in the flesh.
So what on earth would I want to carry a gun for ? Based on actual risk I should perhaps carry a meteorite warning device too.
Carrying a gun because one day I might meet someone with a gun is no better than making laws based on really rare events.
And if my next door neighbour told me that he DID want to carry a gun, he'd probably be on my list of people who shouldn't be allowed to. I mean, what does he want to do, shoot someone ? Jeez, the guy must be a looney.
So someone from the USA might look at the UK and think we are being denied a key freedom, but we might conversely look at the level of guncrime in the USA and be glad the way we are. And we might both be right or both wrong.
Perhaps in the USA things have already gone so far that you WOULD be safer all carrying guns. But that's (IMHO) not the case in the UK.
Disclosure
I lived in the USA for 4 years, starting just before 9/11.
On the post: YouTube, Once Again, Pressured To Remove Terrorist Videos; Feel Any Safer?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Put this in context...
Sounds like a world where noone trusts anyone.
What about an ideal world where there are no guns and everyone is really polite ?
Really, if you're going to start from scratch and build an ideal world, your vision of ideal is pretty grim.
On the post: YouTube, Once Again, Pressured To Remove Terrorist Videos; Feel Any Safer?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Put this in context...
They might be in the UK. --
We do have laws against inciting racial or religious hatred.
What is far more worthy of discussion is where you draw the line. Pointing out the civilian death toll in Iraq might make people hate the coalition countries but it's a matter of fact and presumably shouldn't be censored.
Telling people to go out and stab their MP (and I'm not suggesting that this has ever happened) would definitely take you over the line in the UK.
But when you explore the space in between, it's going to be pretty hard to find a clear line in the sand that everyone can agree on.
My point about heroin and guns was that many people in governments believe that they can reduce the amount of something that will be found in society by making it harder to get at (cf "the war on drugs").
This belief is held whether the thing is legal or illegal.
In the UK there is an ongoing discussion about increasing the price of alcohol to reduce "binge drinking". And removing coke machines from schools to stop kids getting fat. These are both legal but in both cases the suggestion is that if it's harder to get there'll be less of it.
The same rationale applies to the very high UK tax on cigarettes. If it was JUST to raise money then economists would no doubt suggest lowering the rate would increase the overall take.
Many people of course do NOT agree with this. Going after the drug supply raises the price and potentially makes drug related crime more profitable. And it is also argued by some that the war on drugs has simply not worked. Without a change in demand, it is futile.
But politicians play to the gallery and always seem to have to look tough.
So coming back to my original point, Mike seemed to express surprise that anyone would believe a youtube ban on terrorist vids would address the problem.
And my post was simply saying this
- there are plenty of people currently in the UK who think vids alone can radicalise someone (probably due as Rose correctly says to poor reporting of a recent event)
- there are people in all countries who believe you can reduce consumption of undesireable things by going after the supply (rather than the demand)
- stopping youtube is a not insignificant step in that direction
- So why is Mike surprised ? There's actually a fairly clear rationale behind such actions (whether or not you agree with it).
I should also say that I believe there's a big difference between a subtle, almost documentary style video aimed at building hatred of a government and one showing a beheading (which I would contend would never be used to "win supporters", but to simply excite the converts).
You might consider banning both of these, but probably for different reasons.
On the post: YouTube, Once Again, Pressured To Remove Terrorist Videos; Feel Any Safer?
Re: Re: Put this in context...
Sorry I didn't read this closely enough first time round.
We clearly disagree because you maybe think everyone having a gun would make the place safer (citizens defending themselves etc) whereas I tend to believe the fewer guns the better, even if only the very bad guys and the few armed police had them.
If a mugger with a gun meets an unarmed person in an alley, chances are someone will lose their wallet.
But if both are armed, someone will probably get shot and it won't always be the one you might hope.
We had a guy go on the rampage recently in the north of England. Shot > 20 people. The authorities say that nothing in his history and his gun ownership applications would have given any clues that he was not safe.
However, there are many people (myself included) who would say that the very fact that a taxi driver wants to own multiple guns is itself a sign of mental imbalance in itself.
Often I hear people say after a Columbine style event that if more citizens had guns it would have saved lives but I also note that for long periods (maybe hours) these situations are shrouded in utter confusion with noone (including the police) knowing quite where or who the shooters are.
I would contend that it is an equally valid point of view that if lots of people had guns in these situations there would be potentially worse chaos with scared people shooting wildly at each other.
So I favour a world where there are no legal guns and heavy penalties for people caught with illegal ones.
Kids would not get accidentally shot with the gun they found under dad's bed. Disgruntled high school kids would simply not have easy access to a family weapon.
The few people with guns (the very bad guys) would indeed have an advantage but we do have armed police when required.
In the British model, armed police are a handpicked subset who are thought to be mentally capable of handling the responsibility. Most police are unarmed. They chase bad guys down on foot rather than shooting them in the back between donut breaks in the cruiser. And we in the UK like it that way.
But it's just my point of view and I'd defend to the death your right to completely disagree with me.
On the post: YouTube, Once Again, Pressured To Remove Terrorist Videos; Feel Any Safer?
Re: Re: Put this in context...
-- SO, a criminal being able to get a hold of a gun etc is perfectly fine --
Not at all. My point was that you go for low hanging fruit first. If there are no gun shops people have to work that little bit harder to get a gun, but noone pretends that this means there are no guns.
As in the USA and many countries, heroin is not available in the supermarket (though people can find it somewhere if they try hard enough) because the perception is that if it was EASY to get then a lot more people would get it.
It may be wrong (many argue the approach is futile) but it's how many currenmt laws are made.
Hence the mindset of the authorities (which I attempted to explain, but not defend, though Rose Welch seems to think it is my point of view) that says take the easy stuff out first (hate inciting videos on youtube) and hope that this will at least reduce the problem.
And regarding the news story about the woman stabbing the MP. I am sure Rose is right and she was not radicalised by 3 months of videos, but THAT IS WHAT THE UK TABLOIDS ARE IMPLYING. Hence that is what public opinion thinks. Hence that is what politicians are pandering to.
As I said, I'm trying to shed light on the politicians behaviour, not defend or agree with it.
There's a difference.
On the post: YouTube, Once Again, Pressured To Remove Terrorist Videos; Feel Any Safer?
Put this in context...
The stabbing was in protest at the way he voted in Parliament back in 2002/2003 regarding the Iraq war.
What has surprised many people is that this young woman was smart, educated and yet had (apparently) become radicalised in a few short months entirely by exposure to videos on websites.
Her radicalisation was not attributed to attendance of a radical mosque or attendance of a trainign camp, JUST the videos.
So it is understandable that the authorities want to try and minimise chances of this recurring.
Google (who purportedly don't want to be evil) can be politely asked to help by removing videos from YouTube. If they were also asked to not link in searches to such content on other websites I would imagine this would make quite a dent in the amount of stuff easily accessible to people.
Not so easy to ask the Jihadists to remove such content from their sites, obviously.
Though I have absolutely no grounds for saying this I'd wager than a huge proportion of internet users are fairly lazy. If they don't find it in YouTube or via a google search they might stop looking.
And remember, the worry is not about whether committed Jihadists can find these videos - they are already radicalised. It is normal people stumbling into them and becoming radicalised that the authorities fear.
To see an example of the effect they fear, look for any YouTube video concerning the events of 9/11 and the follow the trail of associated videos and pretty soon you'll be watching some fairly virulent (and inflammatory) conspiracy theory stuff.
I'm sure this is what they fear, an innocent(ish) video concerning some social issue relevant to muslims, that links progressively and subtley into stuff that makes you absolutely hate key western governments, and which motivates you to take some action.
You're right that this won't get rid of the stuff, but it will make the average person a bit less likely to be dragged into it.
Here's an other example. Guns in the UK. A criminal can no doubt find one fairly easily, as he/she might know someone with connections. But as there are no gun shops and no normal route for going out and buying a weapon, your average law abiding citizen would not know where to even start looking for one. Which makes it just that little bit harder for a normal citizen to become a crazed shooter.
On the post: Is Passing Query String Data In Referral URLs A Privacy Violation?
Re: Not actually Google...
So Google choose exactly what to send at that point.
On the post: Is Passing Query String Data In Referral URLs A Privacy Violation?
So let me get this straight...
Someone has bought the keywords "lace underwear", and I get to see their ad.
But when I click their ad, they don't just see that their ad triggered on the keywords "lace underwear", they actually see that I came to their site from a google results page for the string "lace underwear for men".
Is that the problem ?
Jeez, the guy has too much time on his hands.
The REAL issue would be if
a) google started giving people access to the search strings their ad was shown for, not just those it was clicked thru for. But I'm sure they never will because
1. It is evil and also stupid
2. The amount of data they'd be handing over would be enormous and no-one would want to have to deal with it (esp as it is so unqualified)
b) google passed other info that they know about you too (say an email address if you're signed into gmail or whatever else they know, maybe even a cell phone number for mobile searches).
Again, this would be
1. Evil
2. Stupid
c) google included your GPS coords (for a search from a phone) without you having had a very clear opt in first. Of course, this might be implied if the adverstiser has asked for his ad to be selectively shown...
The problem is not actually with google (on whom public gaze is permanently trained) but people offering similar services through apps that might have far access more personal info and which may not work anything like a good old fashioned browser. Not nearly as many people keeping them honest.
What I think google SHOULD do with adwords is include in their quality score a "rapid return" clause. That is, if I click through an ad and within 5 seconds I have reversed back to the results page or come straight back for another search, then I probably did not find what I wanted, and the landing site may not be offering what the ad taster implied. And it would be OK to pass that info to the advertiser, IMHO, so they could learn from their mistake.
On the post: The Boy Who Mistook An iPhone For His Mother
Kids don't have the barriers we have
It's actually a walkie talkie watch with a tiny counterpart on the dog's collar. You speak commands into it and they come out on the collar in dog language. Thus he understands what you want and happily obeys. No need for the old fashioned "length of rope" technology.
The point I'm making is that he happily assumes that either this is easy or that it soon will be. In fact he wants me to build it some weekend soon. He (and I suspect most kids) have a view of modern tech that is pretty close to magic and are not phased by any of it.
40 years ago before he died my dad told 6 year old me "it'll be easy for your generation, unlike me you can just watch television without worrying about how on earth it works".
On the post: Google Secretly Tested Autonomous Vehicles On The Road
Do no evil
In the google view of the future
- would you ask the car to drive you to your friends house but end up at a different person's house because they had a better quality score ?
- would SEO's be paid by the number of driverless cars that arrive at your business address ?
- could you do an image search of someone attractive and get driven straight to a place where he/she or someone algorithmically similar could be found ?
- will robotic cars all run on android ? I always thought modern cars needed more chrome...
- if you drive for a while with the car's security system disabled, will you end up with a trunk full of cookies ?
- does Spam cause your car to keep driving to a penis enlargment clinic when you wanted to go some where else entirely ? Or to Canada when you asked for Walgreens ?
- Will the RIAA be able to impound your car if you drive to a friend's house and listen to his music ?
- If you have no parking where you live, can you store your vehicle in the cloud ?
It's a brave new world.
I'm not looking forward to the Bing equivalent.
On the post: Rupert Murdoch's Paywall Disaster: Readers, Advertisers, Journalists & Publicists All Hate It
Micropayment etc
"Registration walls" tend to stop people in their tracks even when there is no charge, so it's not a money thing. I pay for wired magazine through my door (it's free online) but balk at free registration walls because they get in the way when I have no time (ie at the moment I am trying to read them). I pay for Economist subscription because they give me it all in MP3 form to listen to when walking the dog.
We pay for convenience and added value.
Someone should have the sense to develop micropayment that is so tiny financially as to be trivial, so that the only problem is the inconvenience. Then work on (and improve) the inconvenience aspect relentlessly till it works. Then let it spread until it becomes the norm.
then, down the line,(when no-one can remember a time before it) raise prices gradually. By then it will be a true friction free market and people will be able to vote for value with their feet.
By convenient I mean "built into the browser".
With crowdsourced ratings for articles that learn what you like and steer you to content you'll also like.
Effectively what google already invisibly does for web content. News will become like any other content. But some content (news or otherwise) will be free and some will cost a fraction of a cent. Dross will be voted out of sight, like a crap website in the search rankings. Quality will rise to the top and free market real time pricing will allow the microprice to reflect that.
My time to read a news article costs money. $1 for 5 minutes at least.
I'd rather spend a cent to know in advance that the article is worth my time, than waste 5 minutes for free finding it's not.
I'd like a system clever enough, for example (from related user feedback) to know that if I've already read X then Y will tell me nothing new.
But it can't happen in a single overnight leap.
Murdoch etc want us to make a step change and his product isn't good enough.
On the post: Rupert Murdoch's Paywall Disaster: Readers, Advertisers, Journalists & Publicists All Hate It
only 90% ?
A lot of early "free" stuff on the web went from free to charging and hoped to hold onto 10% . I'me sure services like Logmein, AVG anti virus, etc would be overjoyed if only 90% of their users opted for the free version of their product.
But if it's free somewhere else, people will eventually find out when they see the costs add up.
I see no future for newspapers. But I can see a future for reporters, if they can sell timely copyrighted content to outlets who are prepared to contribute something (when there are no newspaper sites left to link to).
Reporting of plain facts will be mostly crowdsourced. Opinion and analysis (ie added value) will be bought by websites from contributors to differentiate their sites.
On the post: Doctors Caught Revealing Info About Patients On Facebook
"Private" forums
On the post: Is Free Parking Costing Us Billions?
The socialist model for parking
Went to a town called Morlaix. Lovely centre, sunny day, what better time to eat out in the shadow of the imposing viaduct.
There are several big squares, all with parking.
Now they know that there is a fair amount of demand for parking all day (people want to park near where they work) but a huge amount of demand at lunchtime.
If they were rampant capitalists, they'd hike the prices at lunchtime. Instead, they keep prices high most of the day and then make it free to park 12-2. This misses out on a huge slice of lunchtime car parking revenue, but encourages people to come into town to eat lunch at the cafes and restauraunt.
That's what I expect from a municipal authority that actually understands what they are there for - to look at the big picture for the whole town, not just monetize some land they own.
On the post: BSA Again Lies With Stats; IDC Should Be Ashamed To Put Its Name On Pure Nonsense
Re: Mike, it's you who should be ashamed
When a new version of Office comes out , do I think
"Wow, a few hundred bucks ? That must really add value to my business because it's highly priced. For a moment I suspected it was a waste of my money buying features I don't need when I thought it was going to cost fifty bucks but now I see it is $290 I realise now it is far more useful.
No, I think one of 4 things
1. Wonder if it starts up any quicker ? (you'd think I'd have learnt by now)
2. I wonder if they fixed that stupid bug with styles that appeared in word 6 yet
3. Shit, soon my sheeplike customers will upgrade and my current version will need updating for no apparent reason
4. Oh great, Open Office supports the new file format already. Maybe this is the time when I finally switch off MS Office for good, since the free import filter doesn't actually correctly open network shared files for editing anyway.
Many software upgrades are not because they are required or to move closer to customer's needs (or else software would get smaller and faster with continuous improvement). They are to give an excuse for extracting more revenue from a plateauing market.
What most people need from a Word processor is far simpler than any of the front runners. If I had office 97 but with ODF capability it would be more than I needed.
It seems that only google documents of the major players actually gets that.
I value some of my cheap (but excellent) software far more than some of my heavy weight stuff.
And ask MS if they'd rather every pirated copy of Office became a copy of OpenOffice overnight. Definitely not, they need to keep up user share even if it is not paid market share.
You also wrote "every automation reduces jobs".
Only true in the actual factory itself. Make a country more productive through automation, and more industry will locate there, as well as standards of living rising.
Conversely, would taking all the car assembly robots out of Detroit and making them assemble cars by hand reduce unemployment ? I think not.
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