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GeekNights 20110912 - The Tech News that Wasn't
Tonight on GeekNights, we wonder what tech news really is, and what's really worth talking about. In the "tech" news, typosquatting is surprisingly powerful (and easy), and South Korea has draconian identity laws on the Internet forcing Google's hand. Don't forget the GeekNights Book Club choice: The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm. Also don't forget the GeekNights Worst Webcomic Contest.
- Scott's Thing - If This, Then That
- Rym's Thing - U Mad, Bro?
Comments
Fighter
Fighter
Fighter
Redmage
Expensive, but overpowered when geared. Bane was death effects though. Also killed Warmech with this group on the first try.
My typical group though was:
Fighter
Thief
White Mage
Black Mage
That very first one is pretty much science new that wasn't.
My first FF1 party was:
Monk
Monk
White Mage
Black Mage
Although the red mage suffers in the end game you never actually need that much power to win. There was one time I decided to race a lone Red Mage against a lone Monk to see who would win the day. I remember it being close. The red mage edged victory.
And while we're at it, Let's have a little talk about your own nation. I recall they had a little problem with a site called wikileaks, and have taken some quite interesting steps to try and kill it. But failing that, we have the US government forcing Twitter to hand over information on users, or that your nation is trying to enact laws not only on your own soil, but which actually effect the entire world.
In fact, Rym's EXACT WORDS - Which clearly isn't a great idea. And you said... Which the Wikileaks example shows isn't quite true.
But anyway, none of that changes the fact that what Rym said is either wrong, or he's got a Ron Paul Libertarian kind of view on exactly what a fascist state is, considering that he trusts the US.
Though, you made - at around the same point - a very good statement that applies to COICA - "The rest of the world is suffering because of one country's shitty law affecting the rest of the world."
Britain's defamation/slander/libel laws are a dangerous joke, and I would hesitate to run GeekNights as we do now were I a citizen. France and Germany have dangerous restrictions on speech that would make me hesitate to speak freely in a public capacity in either nation. Australia's content censorship law, even if enforcement is lax, frighten me.
The US goes apeshit against intellectual property violations, but all other forms of speech are so protected it's almost crazy. First amendment is best amendment.
You can't host Adult rated content without some sort of verification in place, and any actor in pornography specifically must be able to be verified as over 18(which is the same as the US's 2257 laws) - but it doesn't have to be more than a link that says "Are you over 18, and it is legal to view this content where you are? Come on in!". The US had similar laws regarding age verification - COPA, anyone? - but these were defeated in the supreme court. And don't forget that there are a number of situations where Free speech does not apply in the US, such as Obscenity and 'Fighting words', to name two, which do not necessarily apply here in the same situations if at all.
The major differences are really that the discussion of suicide can be a little tricky - for example, if you made a How-to guide for committing suicide, that's not on, legally, if you're caught - and that we've got some fucked up copyright laws that we were bullied into as part of a trade agreement, that we later extended to maintain said agreement. Which agreement? Well, The Australian-US free trade agreement, of course.
Our Content censorship laws are hardly different from your own in reality, once you get past the hype, and we have areas where we are in fact better - After all, we can swear on TV and the radio for the most part(christ, SBS, one of our two government funded networks, is famous for showing astoundingly explicit foreign and arthouse films late at night, without even a hint of censorship, the kind of thing that you'd have trouble getting anywhere but pay-per-view channels in the US), without copping hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of fines, and "Nipplegate" wouldn't have caused a raised eyebrow here, let alone public outrage, fines, creating an industry standard 10 second delay, and the censorship and tightened regulation that followed for the next few months, all over a breast that was in TV for less than a second, literally blink and you miss it. They're not ideal, sure - For example, Scott bought up Video game censorship here, which is improving(we're currently in the process of enacting an R18+ rating for video games, but we've not actually enacted it yet - and you were only saved from the same sort of thing yourselves, because your government allowed the industry to self regulate), but not yet perfect. And we're fighting against it - the Labor party has, until recently, distanced itself from the filter because it knows that if they enact it seriously, they're absolutely fucked - well, more than they are at the moment anyway. But we're working on it, what is the US doing? Besides forcing your own laws onto other nations, that is. Of course, that's possible. They're still investigating, however, last I heard, and still will likely attempt extradition Via Sweden. And of course, the US did ask other countries to bring criminal charges against Assange in particular, and restrict his international travel. And they were leaning on private corporations to end all business dealings with wikileaks, which is certainly unethical, but apparently legal. Oh, and how the state department leaned on paypal and lied to them, to get them to suspend donations to wikileaks, and who are rumored to have also leaned on Mastercard and Visa, though nothing I can outright confirm at this time. Certainly, their free speech is legally protected, but the US government has shown itself willing to go to some lengths to attempt to silence them, if it cannot outright gag them due to it's own laws.
As a side note, the term Old people Media gives me gentle, warming thoughts of a crisp backhander - It's a smarmy, arrogant, bullshit term thrown around far too indiscriminately, most often by (not including yourself) elitist, arrogant people who want to feel justified in putting themselves on a pedestal, just because they've had a few less birthdays than someone else, because they've got a chip on their shoulder about being dismissed in the past for being young. Your point? The US is also trying to reintroduce a modified version of these laws so that they are compliant with the initial complaints brought about by the defeated laws, just as COPA did with the initial laws - you know, kind of like how law is refined over time. And don't fool yourself - US sites will ask you to confirm that the materiel you're going to view is legal for you to view in your jurisdiction for a good reason, state laws regarding these things still apply regardless of what the Supreme court decided about a single bit of legislation. More places exist than your tiny slice of New York and they generally have different laws, man, come on, you know this.