This could have a fascinating result:

1) Organisations sign up to host their own "so cool" root domain, expecting that lots of companies will be "forced" to register their key words in the new root domain

2) Companies finally wake up and say "WTF? We don't need this shit" and don't buy in

3) Lots of organisations who did #1 realise they're not going to be able to make enough to pay ICANN let alone cover their costs

4) Scumbuckets come in and start domain-squatting, setting up crap sites, etc

The above may well lead to:

5) People stop trusting domains and use search engines more (it's happening more & more now anyhow - most people can't remember even simple domains and use search engines to find them)

6) More legal cases for domain-squatting and illegal use of registered trademarks/keywords/etc

7) No more "gold rush" mentality for the opening up of new TLDs

8) Bad press for ICANN and fewer groups willing to take part in the next "all new territory" TLD funding drive (leads to less $$$ for ICANN)

Yeah, I'm just dreaming. ICANN is rapidly joining the RIAA & MPAA as a prime example of a bloated, self-serving organisation that's doing all it can to hang onto a way of existance that's no longer viable :(

Insightful???? I thought he was joking! :)

Following an upgrade from Ubuntu v8, I'm running Ubuntu v9.04 (Jackalope) on an EEE PC and sound was completely fraked. After doing some research, I uninstalled PulseAudio from my system and now it all works fine. Still a few tweaks required, but dang, it works.

Why the hell does PulseAudio exist if it's such a piece of crap? Why is it in Ubuntu by default?

Maybe it has great potential and could be a wonderful thing, but until "it just works" it should be an optional extra, not installed by default.

Not sure if you'd heard of these guys:

http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/

They used to be the Internet Bill of Rights group but changed their name recently.

While many in this conversation have said we don't need to separate online/computer rights from general rights, this seems to only be the case in a "perfect world." Sadly, all too many countries pay lip service to the UN Declaration of Human Rights (if they bother at all) and even supposedly democratic & free countries butcher our rights in the online/communications world (Echelon, Australia's proposed Internet Filter, data retention acts in the UK & Korea, etc).

Between the efforts of the IRPDC and the Association for Progressive Communications (with their Internet Rights Charter as I mentioned previously in this discussion) there is work being done to raise awareness of our digital rights, not least of which is knowledge that we even have them let alone that they're being ripped from us.

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) produced their Internet Rights Charter to help provide a basis for taking the UN's Declaration of Human Rights into the online world. It's amazing the number of countries that signed onto the Declaration of Human Rights but think nothing of censoring and snooping on people on-line.

Worth checking out and contacting APC in addition to EFF, etc.

>What would you say first to an alien?

Gesundheit, perhaps? :)

"We have more poisonous things that creep, crawl or slither than I'd care to name"

Now now, don't bring politicians into this story... :)

Actually, I was just using Fox News as an example so people would understand what was being meant by a "slant" on reporting. I don't watch TV and the news sources I know about are from down here in Australia (News Corp vs FairFax vs ABC vs others :)

Figured I'd use Fox 'cos most of you lot are yanks - don't want to have people going "What's Fairfax????" :) :)

Maybe those reporters and editors should also send the letter up the chain to their owners. How many times has a Murdoch or Packer dictated what can & can't be published?

It doesn't take much effort to determine the bias of the reporting source and adjust accordingly to the news being presented (*coff* Fox News *coff*). We shouldn't have to, but it's the way it is.