Delicious LiveJournal Links for 12-22-2010

[andrewducker]

• One week Hugo Chavez is praising Wikileaks, the next he's censoring the net. Aah, the hypocrisy
  (tags: censorship EpicFail Venezuela hypocrisy)
• I've been finding WorkFlowy incredibly handy for organising little tasks. Very simple and easy.
  (tags: productivity tools todo web2.0)
• UN restores gay clause to killings resolution. Ok - who changed their mind?
  (tags: un lgbt rights)
• A cover of Slient Night that actually made me feel all Christmassy.
  (tags: music christmas EpicWin)
• 40% of Americans Believe in Strict Creationism, 16% believe in unguided evolution.
  (tags: religion evolution science creationism usa EpicFail)
• An Interview With the Nativity Innkeeper
  (tags: holiday religion christianity christmas funny)
• Woman hangs up underwear in public, and then invokes the Streisand Effect when Google takes a photo of them.
  (tags: StreisandEffect Google japan EpicFail)
• Why the petrol gauge in cars lies to you.
  (tags: visualization cars)
• Cellular mechanism responsible for chronic inflammation, Type 2 diabetes uncovered
  (tags: diabetes inflammation health biology)
• Warner Bros decides not to tamper with 2001 by putting back in "lost"17 minutes of footage
  (tags: 2001 ArthurCClarke StanleyKubrick movies)
• Vince Cable has apparently declared war on Rupert Murdhoch.
  (tags: libdem RupertMurdoch VinceCable)
• Nice opinion piece: Pornblocking – why it would have killed me
  (tags: porn censorship lgbt)

Comments

[marrog.livejournal.com]

Pornblocking – why it would have killed me

I haven't been following the debate. Has there been mention of:

(a) It being 'opt-in' rather than 'opt-out' for the surfer? (I have a feeling you've talked about this or something similar recently?)

Or

(b) Sites registering themselves (perhaps with some really specific metadata or something simple like that) rather than being picked up by a magic robot?

My knowledge is admittedly limited, but it's always seemed to me as though most internet porn sites are pretty unapologetic about it and there's really little to be gained by them from not opting in since so many of them keep the bulk of their content behind credit card paywalls? I mean, they obviously have advertising too but how many folk really run across porn sites accidentally and are underagers really their desired market? One has to assume not...

Sure there are 'gateway' sites who presumably run on ads and would therefore decline to sign-up as 'adult', but it would be pretty hard to feed a 'serious' porn habit with three minute preview clips from paid sites or amateur vids on PornTube or YouPorn or whatever - indeed, I've always thought that the amateur stuff being really accessible was (a) just not particularly horny (although, again, I'm biased as porn doesn't really do it for me) and more importantly (b) quite nice to have online and accessible because it gave people a nice 'everyday' view of sex and presented all the kinks and twists and bits and bobs in a way that made pretty much anything seem ordinary, and that's, if anything, a good thing. Also people recording stuff in their bedroom and uploading it themselves aren't exactly being 'exploited' so it makes next to no difference to the 'evils' of the porn market itself. The last two porn 'movies' I saw were a couple having sex while their cat pestered them mercilessly, and a guy masturbating into a particularly complicated shoe. Sexy.

[fearmeforiampink]

The suggestion was very much that it would be opt out, rather than opt in.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Do you have a quote for that? That's the impression I got from news articles, but rob, who I was arguing with, assumed opt-in on the grounds that that would solve the stated purpose equally well, and didn't see why the government would do more than that. I wasn't as optimistic, but couldn't actually see helpful quotes by the minister on what he'd suggest, other than "something".

[fearmeforiampink]

Looking for it, the original interview seems to have been in the Times, and thus is behind the Great Paywall. However, a good proportion of the stories mention that it will be opt-out, and none suggesst that it will be opt in. Selected quotes from some such stories:

One:

Ed Vaizey, the culture minister, suggested over the weekend that instead of having parents set controls for their children’s internet access, pornographic material would be blocked at source, meaning that adults would have to “opt in” to viewing the websites.

Two:

Instead of using parental controls to stop access to pornography - so-called "opting out" - the tap will be turned off at source. Adults will then have to "opt in."...

...Pornography sites will be blocked at source unless people specifically ask to view them.

Three:

In an interview with The Sunday Times communications minister and Conservative member of parliament for Wantage & Didcot, Ed Vaizey said he wants Internet service providers to block all pornography unless the subscriber asks to opt-in.

Four:

A few days ago I mentioned how UK MP Claire Perry had called for the creation of a mandatory ISP-level porn filter of the Internet. Adults who wish to access porn can opt-in after verifying they are over the age of 18.

[fearmeforiampink]

Also, the stated reason for 'opt out' rather than opt in is because 15% or more of the population are too stupid to know how to set up and use filters (That's not a direct quote).

[andrewducker]

All the stuff I've seen makes it look opt-out. I have no objection to people opting in to censorship.
And yes, sites registering themselves as child-safe, and agreeing to certain standards is also fine by me, so long as it's voluntary.

[skington.livejournal.com]

The really stupid thing, though, is that people are talking about filtering this stuff at the ISP level.

How exactly, then, do you work it so Dad can view porn, but the kids can't? It's not like each machine will have a different route to the ISP; with IPv4 addresses running out, even if you wanted the additional expense of multiple ADSL or cable routers, there's no alternative to one pipe coming in and sharing it with multiple machines via NAT.

Gas gauges and such

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

As an addendum to the gas gauge piece, speedometers also lie to you. I've calibrated mine against my sat nav and above 20mph it registers that I'm going 4mph fast than I actually am, all the way to 80mph. I believe this is deliberate so you when you are breaking the speed limit in real life, you're really breaking it on your speedo. Then you have no excuse...

Re: Gas gauges and such

[matgb]

Aye, friend of mine relies entirely on her SatNav speedo instead of the car one, and pretty much sticks to the exact limit on the satnav when she's somewhere she doesn't know.

There are so many margins of error built into various speed measuring systems I wonder if anyone knows what speed actual cars are normally driving.

Re: Gas gauges and such

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

When I'm driving through average speed camera zones, I take into account my actual speed vs. the speedometer, the shortest route through the multi-lane road vs. the route I take, the error margin built into the system as a whole and the actual speed above the speed limit that they'd likely ticket you.

I reckon that you could drive at 65mph in a 50mph zone (according to your speedo, without changing lanes on bends) before you're likely to get a ticket. In reality I'd drive at 55-60mph without concern. It's the people that drive at 45mph in the outside lane that get me :)

[matgb]

The logic of the fuel gauge reads remarkably like the logic of the battery metre on a mobile, I seem to recall reading an article with very similar language awhileback.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

workflowy looks good - like an online version of the A4 notebook I write everything down in at work.

Porn, meanwhile: this whole story had me going "but I like porn!" Otoh, I just had to opt out of receiving "adult content" on my mobile. Not that I would look up porn on my mobile, but I might want to look at sites that have, oh I don't know, words like "Lesbian" in them. or "Great tits".

The whole thing seems pointlessly unworkable.

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

opt-out, opt-in, I meant they asked me if I wanted to recieve adult content and I said yes and confirmed I was over 18.

(isn't that odd, if the age of consent is 16?)

[fearmeforiampink]

It's one of the amusing things in this country that you're allowed to have sex at 16, but have to keep your eyes closed for the first two years, as you're not allowed to watch.