Shameless karma whoring:

New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971)

The unanimous opinion itself is very short; essentially, designating documents as secret and punishing anyone who publishes them is a 'prior restraint' and presumed unconstitutional.

What precedent? Settling a privacy class action suit by promising to pay millions to fund some kind of privacy foundation, and no payment to individual users?

Facebook did that last year when it settled the class action suit over its "beacon" program.

Being designated as a common carrier is both a blessing and a curse. Common carriers are highly regulated, and can't, for example, block their competitors access to their services. ISPs and cable companies have lobbied hard over the years to avoid being designated as common carriers by the FCC. I would presume that Twitter and Facebook would also want to avoid common carriage regulation.

The incident you're referring to was a copyright "violation," and involved a DMCA notice and take down.

No.

Slashdot isn't liable for certain kinds of "illegal" material (namely, defamation - i.e., libel) because of section 230 of the Telecom Act of '96. Basically, because it is a "provider of an interactive computer service," and because comments and even stories are provided by "another information content provider" (i.e., users like you and me), Slashdot is immune from any liability it would normally have for being the publisher or speaker of "illegal speech" (like defamation, but potentially also intrusions on privacy and the like).

Section 230 *does not* provide immunity for copyright infringement - instead, the DMCA's notice and take-down system gives Slashdot immunity so long as it promptly takes down infringing material after being served notice by the copyright owner. A common carrier, however, would (I think) be immune to liability for copyright infringement even with notice that a user was using its service to infringe copyrights.

Both of those safe harbors (230 and the DMCA notice and take-down) look a lot like the protections normally given to common carriers - so it's understandable that you might think that that's what they are. But its not the case. Slashdot cannot be a common carrier because it does more than "carry." It chooses what stories to publish on its website, and that kind of discretion means that it doesn't provide "common" access to its service. Further, as another poster points out, common carrier status has to be provided by law; one doesn't qualify for common carrier protections just by adhering to a certain kind of business practice.

I'm sorry. I should have just said "she's being a normal young adult."

All kids/teenagers hate it when their parents criticize their choice of how to spend their time, all kids/teenager hate it when their interests are seemingly ignored by their family, and all kids/teenagers rebel against their family. If her condition magnifies these typical reactions, then, I'm sorry, but "youth rebellion disorder" is an age-old problem that exists even without ipods and even without cerebral palsy.

This is a normal young adult being a normal young adult.

It doesn't have to be science to be useful.

The new age healers I've known are 1) nice people who want to help you, and 2) honest about what they can and can't do.

Don't forget that many people voluntarily give money to their church every sunday, and are happy to do so, and feel that it's the right thing to do. You could call that "taking money from people by lying to them," but you're ignoring that people are getting spiritual fulfillment and moral satisfaction from it. It's the same thing with spiritual healing. A lot of people do feel better afterwords, and in fact feel better served by spiritual healing than from whatever treatment a doctor gives them. Bear in mind that I'm talking about treatment for things like chronic pain and headaches, not cancer or infectious diseases.

Most homeopathy and new age healing methods don't actually make scientific claims (in part because they can't), they're spiritual endeavors that depend to a great degree on the belief of the "patient." If you put your "faith" in science and hard data, then, yeah, avoid new age healing. But there's nothing wrong with spiritual fulfillment and/or the placebo effect.

Yeah, there are frauds out there who claim they can cure cancer with magic charms, and that's dangerous. But most new agey healers deal with things like joint pain, chronic pain, headaches, and other ailments that are likely stress and/or posture related, and so really just need belief by the patient that they've been healed, or some kind of spiritual fulfillment. Sometimes there are things that pills or surgery can't fix.

The real mumbo jumbo is astrology, because it does make scientific claims.

You know, a while ago the US had a prolonged bout of civil disobedience. Just like China, a frequently jailed US dissident won the Nobel peace prize. There's now a national holiday in his honor.

There may be some similarities, but I'd say there are some differences too.

Mod up. Great point.

Yes, god forbid that the public suddenly become interested in science. It might one day break their hearts.

Yes.

No.

Mockery is useful. Bare naked ridicule of the status quo can be useful. Bonus if it's funny, as TFA is.

The problem with adding how to fix the system is that you could be dead wrong. Or shortsided. Or partisan, or dumb. Just clearly pointing out what the problem is is extremely important.

This guy isn't saying he has the answer. I respect that. He's helping shape the debate. I respect that too.

People have been saying that since the beginning of time.* And yet, there is still a gaming industry; people who were raised on the "old classics" (whether "classic" is defined as pacman, tetris, mario, wolfenstein 3d, warcraft, quake, fallout, halflife, counterstrike, god of war, etc.) still play games (if they have time) and still love gaming. I play a ton of TF2 now, and, yes, there has been constant innovation in terms of gameplay over the past 20 years of FPS multiplayer. Name the genre,** and there are examples of modern games in that genre that are both graphically superior and have at least some innovative gameplay features that make them at least arguably "better" games than the classics.

And that's only looking at mainstream games. As you've pointed out, there are plenty of casual games - and more importantly, indie games - that focus on gameplay over graphics. And it's always been that way. Casual and indie gaming is not a new phenomenon, except on consoles. There have always been casual and indie games on the PC.

* beginning of time = when I was born, in the 80's.
** exception: space flight sims. I really miss Tie Fighter...