Recent Comments:
Law of the Game on Joystiq: No Freedom of Trash Talk {Joystiq}
Jun 26th 2008 2:44AM Actually, a real "conservative, constitutionalist, libertarian" would agree with Mark. It's not the "damn lawyers or beuracrats" who are telling you to shut up -- it's Microsoft, a private company telling you to follow their terms of use when using their private property. If you tried to sue Microsoft on the grounds of free speech, then you're the one bringing in the government bureaucrats and lawyers, not Microsoft.
Look at it this way -- let's say a liberal wanted to put a sign on your door saying "hlarge4 is a moron". It does no harm and does not infringe on anyone's freedoms, but if you wanted to tear down the sign, you would be entirely within your rights. Why? Because it's your frickin' door, in the same way that XBox Live is Bill Gate's frickin' plaything.
Law of the Game on Joystiq: No Freedom of Trash Talk {Joystiq}
Jun 26th 2008 2:18AM Josh, it's a legal question. Moderators are LEGALLY allowed to ban you for whatever reason they want. It may not be the right thing to do, but they can do it and there's really nothing you can say.
For example, let's say I'm a Boston Red Sox fan. My neighbor walks into my house wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap. I make him leave. You can argue that there's nothing wrong with supporting another baseball team, but that's not the point. The point is that it's MY house, and I can force him to leave for whatever reason I want.
Internet forums are the same way. They're someone's private place and they can boot you out for any reason they want.
Law of the Game on Joystiq: No Freedom of Trash Talk {Joystiq}
Jun 26th 2008 2:06AM Actually Vault, it isn't the same. Mark (and NATO_Duke) are saying that censoring trash talk is okay so long as it's not done by the government. If the government passed a law that censored trash talk, then that would probably violate the first amendment.
The emphasis here is on WHO makes the law.
You can't shout "Fire" in a public building because safety concerns outweigh free speech in this case. That is, it's WHAT you say. Both the government and owners of private property can forbid people from saying "fire" or "bomb".
Amazon's MP3 store nearing global launch? {Engadget}
Jun 23rd 2008 11:51AM Yes. Yes it will.
NVIDIA shows off Tegra on video {Engadget Mobile}
Jun 3rd 2008 7:03PM Nvidia is showing off a chipset, not a device. Although Nvidia is currently only supporting Windows CE / WinMo, it's not inconceivable that Apple and Nvidia strike up a deal to use Tegra in the next iPhone.
Displaced by XP, Sugar Labs goes it alone {Engadget}
May 17th 2008 5:09PM While we're being snotty about which operating system they should use, keep in mind that from a kid's point of view, they're getting their own computer for the first time ever! When I was a kid, I spent hours doing ASCII art in WordPerfect for MS-DOS -- and WinXP is way preferable to MS-DOS.
That said, there are obviously much better tools for artistic expression than a word processor -- and here, Sugar definitely has advantages over XP. I totally dig how the Sugar UI encourages collaboration and subtly teaches kids how computers work (e.g. the idea of having memory-intensive programs take up more space on the wheel is a brilliant way of teaching memory management).
But there's no reason why most of this couldn't be replicated in XP. There's nothing inherent in Linux that makes something like the Sugar UI unique to that OS -- just as there's nothing about XP that makes spreadsheets unique to it. The only advantage Linux has over XP, from an educational perspective, is that people can poke around in the source code -- but honestly, but how many of these kids do you expect to do that? The ones that are clever and motivated enough to do so will figure out how to swap XP for Linux and the ones that don't will be happy enough.
HTC Touch Diamond shots and specs: this week's big announcement? {Engadget Mobile}
May 4th 2008 9:02PM Amen. Using USB port for headphones blows.
Joyswag: Win Grand Theft Auto IV on your platform of choice {Joystiq}
Apr 30th 2008 10:02PM 360. Water Bill.
School cellphone ban upheld by New York court {Engadget Mobile}
Apr 26th 2008 9:47PM >> it restated just how many incidents had been reported where mobiles were used for harassment on school grounds
Because clearly, harassment at school would never occur without cellphones
Hackers embed flashing animations on epilepsy support forum {Engadget}
Mar 30th 2008 12:00AM Not to condone this sort of behavior, but I wonder if there's a way to install software on a computer that controls the display of seizure-inducing material. I mean, big flashing banners are a little rarer now but it's still fairly easy to accidentally wander onto a page with one.
