i'm all for netflix... to me they have both reasonable plans, and a fairly sizable database of movies to rent via mail. however they need to be granted the 'right' legally to make digital copies of all of those movies too... i prefer movies on demand, but their digital database is extremely limited because of our failed copyright law; and if this werent so, i'm sure more companies would make their own databases of digital film for distributing via streaming media services.

if the for-profit monopolies want to survive they really need to embrace new technologies not shun them, as they have been since people were first able to duplicate another persons work. their efforts to stop technology from moving forward and their efforts to limit peoples control over access to entertainment media just makes them look worse and worse and worse.

my generation was raised to spite them, and my child will learn about their behavior as well, as well as why it occurs, and how to stop it. surely other parents will tell their children too... and sooner or later, if they don't stop this madness, they'll simply be replaced.

the solution isn't to limit technology, but to encourage non-profit cooperative... at a non-profit grocer all prices can stay rock bottom for even the highest quality goods.

plus, with the national co-op networks in place co-op grocers, and therefor the buyers themselves, can work together to encourage the manufacturers to make better products that cost less than, rather than more than, the crappier products.

[i call this the wall-mart strategy, since they're notorious for successfully setting their own buying prices and demanding changes in manufacturing practices.]

a good example of this could be: a sugarless wholegrain cereal at a co-op could cost less than a high sugar content bleached and then re-enriched cereal, or a sugarless organic peanut butter--which is naturally sweet--could be cheaper than sugared inorganic name brand crap.

this would do away with the need to waste a customers time scanning the products at every grocery store to create a customer friendly database of product pricing schemes across a city/nation.

please take note that such a system could be modified by retail agents.

also note the fact that: in most areas the majority of the grocers are owned by the same organization. in seattle it's really just kroger vs wal-mart, and whole foods vs co-ops. all of kroger's stores are strategically designed to appear in business against each other in order to influence the sales of certain items. [i am the horses mouth]

if you don't want to allow your government to drag you on one path or another subvert it... how? well not by blowing up the capital. subvert it by replacing it's many functions with citizen--not corporate--controllable organizations. and by replacing corporations with controlling interests with localized non-profit cooperative orgs.

you name the corporation and i'll list off how to replace it with an non-profit org, and how the non-profit will undoubtedly be able to provide better services and products.

i'm talking about things like: state independent non-governmental non-profit member controlled insurance agencies that can provide all manner of insurance... and can pay out all funds paid to them, except a minimal amount for handling costs. heres 'at cost' insurance, and it can pay out for medical emergencies, vehicle collision repair, and elderly care, et cetera. who needs social security when there are non-profit insurance organizations that can pay you your unused money back later (tax free), and IRAs (also tax free)?

oh wait, this topic is about security and the internet.

so, who's really interested in spying on and limiting internet activities? it's not the government for the most part.

why not replace the music industry corporations, and movie industry corporations, and current organizations (riaa, mpaa), with truly non-profit, civilian interested organizations. there are several that are already in place and make the majority of truly quality films today anyway. most people don't know it, but many quality films are financially backed by either one use, or small non-profit organizations. they just need to focus on pushing the for-profits out of the picture by creating more diverse films, and advertising their services, as well as encouraging donations from the masses, and requiring that the tickets and DVDs for their movies be sold at cost, or so close to it that the difference is unnoticeable to the buyer. that difference can then be used to further their reach into the big for-profit's pockets.

the same goes for the music industry, imagine a world filled with quality music distributed by organizations that are interested in strengthening our societies culture rather than producing cheap cookie cutter goods to our youth that turn a quick buck--or a few million.

why would a non-profit be interested in limiting peoples ability to enjoy their wares, and why would somebody bother downloading something for free when the can get it at cost, and guarantee their continued access to low cost but high quality goods by paying that low cost, or even donating more to cover the difference for those who may not be able to afford that cost or may not be willing to pay it.

i don't see why there needs to be so much focus on keeping our data from the eyes of our government anyway. really there should be more interest in removing their reason for prying in the first place.

and yes, i realize this is all about the UK gov looking through facebook for terrorists. and no, i don't think our national security agencies should be privatized, not even as non-profit organizations. but honestly who cares if they're sitting in our bedrooms looking through our paper journals while we're at work, as long as they're not misusing any of the personal information they might find. if you're not a terrorist you shouldn't be worried. true privacy is after all wholly unachievable.

however there should be strict requirements just to justify the costs of exercising the ability to sniff packets and file legal claim to access data. there should be a required percentage of payoff to prove to the taxpayers that their work is proving fruitful.

if they set up a system to just watch everything, and play big brother, and it costs millions, but only manages to stop or identifies terrorists one out of every ten terrorist attack, or proves incapable of tracking a certain group. then those funds should surely be cut back and that agency should be put on probation for misappropriation of finances. and all the statistics--not the information garnered--should be provided openly to the world, to either prove or disprove the worth of the agencies practices.

furthermore, any government agency is financed by the people of a country, and those people should have the innate ability to govern that agencies basic practices and it's ability to exist through democratic means.

also, anybody who tries to misrepresent an agencies productivity to keep it operational, or who tries to subvert the freedoms of the people for--anybodies--monetary benefit should undoubtedly be charged with treason and imprisoned. since a nation is after all it's people, not it's government.

don't betray those who feed you!

i forgot about MediaWiki's WikiBooks... i suppose the smart thingto do here is generate a WikiSchool.org that incorporates wikipedia and wikibooks materials, along with hosted educational vids, into a curriculum to be followed by those seeking educational enrichment.

then those courses could seek qualification as accepted by the board of education, and a third party org could be developed--like WAVA.org--to monitor and provide proof of the success of students (accreditation of materials/course structure and educational oversight for the student body).

a free, open-source, Alternative Learning Environment for all!

there are how-to sites out there like this... find one thats free, as in open-source and non-profit, and encourage them to organize not only how-to PDFs and Vids, but quarterly class curriculum as well.

i homeschool my kid via WAVA.org, a washington state public school that uses K12.com materials... it's really the best way to teach a child, by far... so long as there's a learning coach with the patience to teach the child daily, for free. anyhow, there's no reason a sustainable non-profit version of k12.com's material couldn't be developed--and for a wider age group than just K-12th grade.

brainpop.com is another for-profit that could use an open-source non-profit retrofit!

obviously an open-source society of innovators would thrive... as long as people can change their focus from earning dollars to encouraging social growth and sustainability.... oh wait, they are, en mass... don't worry about the gov, they can be subverted through action... put your energy to better use: invent something and use the GPL--or the like--to distribute the idea and encourage it's use and further development.

intellectual property is fraud, and should be illegal.

can somebody say non-profit television?

. . . follow the quality, follow the desirable.

i hear ya.... personally, i think one of the reasons the executives cut so much good programing is because of the messages they carry.

firefly came off as a fairly anti-christian, anti-government, pro-confederate, pro-crime TV sci-fi/western.

FOX's focus seems to be mainly on entertaining, not educating, and certainly not on encouraging intellectual conversation.

ps: i'm currently watching FF for the first time.

oh, and to add, i wouldn't give a Kindle to a kid, middle school grade maybe, but no younger without at least turning off the cellphone radio... it emits radiation... and they say nobody under twelve should use a cell phone regularly for this reason. plus i hear the new radios put off more radiation than the old radios, even with the more advanced shielding.

plus it's a fancy tech gadget, they could make kid friendly versions, but i dont see a need for it till they become more common.

when i say student i'm thinking college... i never even considered giving this to a kid till you said something! i'm talking about advanced social and political news, RSS feeds, and government forms... where does that say kid to you?

remember, there are child focused cellphones out there, but they're still 'far and few between'.

the Kindle can display PDFs!... as well as many other textual files, and images (though currently some conversion is necessary for some files); and reads text out loud to you and plays music while you read.

plus it shows you web like pages when browsing/searching for books, so it wouldnt be hard to convert the many variants of wiki's into E-Book reader acceptible formats... say through a third party web portal, in realtime.

the makers of wikipedia.org have a wiktionary.org, and ebook/text book database, as well as many other types of educational and reference sites being built as i type.

then there's netlibrary (a for profit), which many public library systems buy access to so their users can read e-books online.

then there's the Government Printing Office which is looking to make all primary legal materials produced by the U.S. readily available (for all branches and offices of the us gov, this means meeting dialog transcripts at congressional hearings as well as standard legal jargon). they're also looking to "work even more closely with our libraries and reform the Federal Depository Library Program to support them better."

a non profit has built 200 dollar laptops more technically advanced and capable than the Kindle, why cant someone build some cheaper cell network accessible e-book readers to lease out via libraries to people that need them, to sell to people that can afford them, and loan/give to the even less fortunate folk who cant even afford to lease one.

they could build in a 'buy one give one' scheme, and a 'lease one for a friend/student/stranger' scheme. and of course they could also take regular donations.

the possibilities are endless, and i bet students would buy them up in a heart beat, especially if they could check them out for a while with a simple month to month lease agreement. and since they could be distributed at libraries there wouldnt be a problem with advertising or finding retail space!

complete recyclablity would be built in and outdated models or broken units would go back to the manufacturer to become new e-book readers, so the cost of the replacement would be less for owners that turn in their old units at the time of purchase.

it's all so blatantly obvious to me.... if only people werent so greedy we'd have this available instead of a stagnant, closed, proprietary Kindle!

imagine: a database could be created of all the no longer copyrighted reading material and music and then be made available for download, cheap or free, via Kindle, PC, or Mobile phone/PDA.

technically these databases already exist, in several places, but one non-governmental, non-profit could be designated to open access to all the databases through one portal... like a google search engine.

that database/portal would of course keep all the transmission data as simple as possible to keep the connection/downloading costs down.

if there was anybody with the knowhow around to implement such a task it wouldn't be hard to find the funds... unfortunately i'm just a simpleton from nowheresville, with no education to speak of, and no money in the bank to even get things started; by compiling a proposal, contacting like minded individuals, or puting together and mailing out grant request forms.

the fact that the hardware would have limited use would encourage only those really interested to look into obtaining one! and they could be leased--with usage monitored, so an idle one could be reabsorbed into the hand out program, updated when needed, and kept off e-bay.

sure the user could pick and choose their RSS feeds and free e-papers/e-books, but the free features would be severely limited; just free e-papers, free e-books, downloaded textual files, and possibly access to gov/library websites.

the low grade computers were just thrown in there for good measure, but truly i'm really just interested in getting thousands of kindles into the hands of the poor, as well as opening up publicly availably information channels on the device, and lowering the overall cost of manufacturing the device by increasing sales and distribution.

surely even those that would classify for the hand out would be able to afford a normal e-book on occasion, or a newspaper subscription.

i know the kindle is proprietary, and i'd rather it was open source, but it's what is available right now and it's a fantastic little gadget with a world of possibilities.

heck... i stopped reading real books two years ago... i love to read, and i read just about as many words as i used to (3 books a week min), and i still read e-books on occasion, but for some reason i just can't seem to get involved in paper anymore. i'd buy a kindle in a heart beat, just to read free e-books from gutenberg.org but i can't afford the current price at the moment.

ever heard of an e-book reader?

with the benefits of digital text there's no reason for 'paper' for-profit news papers to stick around... sure the tech to make newspapers should be maintained, and surely they will be by local niche papers; but even those ought to focus mainly on internet/digital readers, while letting people and businesses 'subscribe' to receive their paper versions.

and then occasionally they could dole out a healthy helping of free randomly distributed paper copies of their paper versions to gain readers (paper the town).

digital books and newspapers allow for more control over the content by the user, easier access to materials, higher mobility, they are also far more environmentally friendly and profitable.

there's really only two reasons for a reader not to transfer to digital media, those being favorability of the reader for paper material and inaccessible prices for the necessary technology.

i wonder if anyone in the Government has considered granting subsidies to the impoverished so they can purchase e-book readers or simple computers for the main purpose of obtaining the status of an informed and educated citizenry. and then also providing free Gov funded access to both social and political news (like free adaptable RSS feeds on amazon's Kindle).

i'm telling you, all we need to do is find people in need who are willing and capable of starting non-profit co-operatives to fill whatever need they have, be it clean automobiles or cheap internet services, and they'll take care of the rest.

our economy isn't going to be saved by giving handouts to the already excessively rich, so they can focus more money into their pockets.

our economy will get better when joe shmoe has more money to put in his bank account because he's not blowing all his dough on over priced crap he doesn't need because he's being overwhelmed by stressful advertising--stress is bad for america.

even the most decent middle class stores pocket around 20% off each item sold (how else do you think they make billions of dollars a year, it's not in pennies, it's in dimes).

anybody ever been to a 70% off sale after Xmas? they're still making a profit off each sale!

i work for an merchandise inventory service... i see in numbers. and i don't like what i see.

so we need open, at cost, co-operative, 301c, non profit, internet service providers!

wow, really?

i wonder where else that business model could prove useful, when stimulating our economy or saving our environment are concerned?