| Subscribe via RSS
One of the largest newspapers in the mid-Atlantic, Washington Post (WaPo), will be making an important decision with regard to their commenting infrastructure and essentially their online community. More »
Tags: community, debate, discussion, internet, News
Another incident (link via Digg) involving more Taser abuse from law enforcement, even if you are physically handicapped and posing no physical threat.
Donnell Williams was at home getting out of his bath only an with only a towel on, turned the corner in his house and was at gun point with police. Williams, who is medically deaf and forgot put his heading aide on, he was terrorized and motioned that he was deaf by pointing to his ear. Police responded by electrocuting him. Police were called to William’s home when searching for a shooter — which was later determined that it was a false call. You can read the full story on the local news affiliate, KWCH-12.
Deputy Chief Robert Lee passively responded to this incident with the following statement:
“This one occurred on the worst of calls, that being a shooting. The first few minutes getting control of the scene are very, very important.”
His statement failed offer any assurance that corrective action would take place, nor did he state that further training on the use of a Taser would take place. This is unacceptable! How do we accept this? More importantly, why do we accept this abuse?
Tasers aren’t meant to be the first tool of choice when handling conflicts with subjects. First, you need to accurately assess a situation. Then you must make a reasonable decision on how to react to it. As I’ve blogged before, Discretion is Important, you need to listen to them. If the situation legitimately warrants the use of compliance devices, then you do that … but never should you skip the elementary fundamentals of a field interview (listening to their verbal and non-verbal body language.)
Despite having the officer apologize for the incident, it does not address the greater problem of trigger-happy law enforcement who lack the ability of protecting and serving.
How many legal risks or minutes/pages of media coverage will it take to address this problem? Unfortunately, I can’t tell you, but one thing is for sure — it will be some time until Taser abuse reaches the level of egregiousness that is felt such as Rodney King.
Tags: debate, discussion, Government, law, News, police, Rants, taserEver since the early 90’s, Web users have always wanted to block pop-up ads from invading our desktops. It’s been kind of a push-then-shove fight between users and Web sites. I’ll share my perspective on the battle with online advertising and share some insight on both sides.
No one likes ads, on the same note, not many want to pay for high-quality services. Even when people did pay a premium for services, they still were shown ads (e.g. Flickr, AOL, Yahoo*) and users today are given very little choice with their online experience, except for guerrilla tactics by using third party programs to block/hide/prevent advertisements from reaching their eyeballs.
Do providers listen? Sorta.
A majority of online marketers understand that people’s Web browsers have pop-up blockers and acknowledge that their marketing techniques stepped over the boundary that users are willing to accept to access a given Web site. Instead of pop-ups, marketers have resorted to more “organic” marketing such as text link advertising. Google AdSense is the best example of this. Whatever, at least I didn’t have 768×60 pixels of real estate blinking at me.
Anyhow, a free addon for Mozilla Firefox, AdBlock Plus, has come under fire lately because it enables users to manage their online experience by blacklisting known advertising networks and heuristics on possible ad-related strings in Web objects. It landed on my five extensions that I can’t live without as number one. The author of the addon responds back to the campaign against ABP stating the profit has to be earned and isn’t a right, and questions the profitability of ads themselves for Web site owners.
Essentially, the argument is based on the assumption that ads generate revenue and that sites would become extinct without the ads. While possibly true in some circumstances, the demographic of ABP users are folks who have become blind of ad sizes — you know, you just ignore anything on a page that is a 468×60 block of content.
In a nutshell, here’s the talking points about ABP:
Pro-AdBlock Plus:
Anti-AdBlock Plus:
Are advertisers about to have another pop like they did with pop-ups? Maybe users don’t like ads anymore. Users evolved and the only way to defeat ABP is to use in-stream contextual advertising and not use massive advertising networks that can be blocked. Should it become a cat and mouse game? Depends, are advertisers and Web owners ready to respect their users?
Innovate or die. Web site owners need to find new methods to monetize their users. Maybe, giving an option for ads to be turned off if they pay a fee, or after a certain account tenure? Not a decision for me to make, but one for a site owner to determine based on their demographics.
What about the loss of my dollars as a Web site owner? Listen to your audience, and cater to their needs. This could mean adding a premium content areas, it could mean monetizing the content itself (”…Brought to you by Coke!”). Second, CTRs have been dropping as users are simply not interested and have cognitively become blind to the traditional ad spots.
What do you think? Are ads good to keep the Web moving, do they hinder users’s experiences, or could a good experience for users and authors be made with ads? Post in the comments below!
*Yahoo - Yahoo “Plus” users are given a “premium” e-mail box with less ads and POP access.
In Virginia and DC, the possession and use of Radar Detectors are illegal. I had to give up mine when I moved here back in November ‘06. However, I never had the chance to explain my beliefs on why these devices should be legal.
Myth: Radar detectors reduce speed of drivers.
False. Speeding is usually a conscientious behavior many people make when either late or fulfilling their own need to go faster. A Radar Detector doesn’t grant someone that right. However, I’ll mention that radar detectors do probably aide on one’s decision to speed.
Myth: Radar detectors prevent police from giving you a ticket.
False. Radar detectors only will alert the driver after the officer is acquiring your vehicle’s speed. I would find it very difficult for one to reason with a judge citing that “my detector didn’t go off, so I should be dismissed.”
Myth: Radar detectors danger everyone else when someone speeds.
False. I can think of many additional factors that danger everyone else when on the road. In fact, I think radar detectors keep the roads safer because the driver is generally more attuned to the risks that affect their driving. Many detectors now available offer the ability to detect ambulance strobe patterns, thereby alerting the driver there is an emergency vehicle approaching. This can be especially valuable when the driver has their windows up or their radio’s volume up.
Myth: Radar detectors promote illegal activity.
False. The drivers that choose to speed make an active choice to violate the law. On all the packaging of radar detectors, they always state that you must obey all local traffic laws.
——
Radar detectors receive the signal that is already being blasted at it. It’s a radio frequency (in the 27-38GHz band), so it is nothing special. It is not a police vehicle detector, contrary to popular belief. The effectiveness is greatly reduced when LIDAR (Infrared, “laser”) speed measurement devices are used on a speeder due to their 600-1000nm wide beam.
If a driver wishes to spend their money on these devices, they should be able to. I would suggest a sticker to be placed on packages advising of the local traffic enforcement laws, so ignorance isn’t an excuse.
My conspiracy theory is that the manufacturers of Radar Detectors (Cobra, Bel, Whistler, Escort, etc.) probably share their secret sauce with law enforcement speed measurement companies (LTI, Kustom Signals, etc.) so the police can keep up with the technology.
What do you think? Should Radar Detectors be legal or not? Let me know in the comments.
Tags: debate, laws, OpEd, radar detectors, virginiaI was talking with a friend on the phone and the topic of Gun control was discussed. In a nutshell, he’s pro-firearms and I’m indifferent with the exception that I don’t want our government to waste any more money on a failed bureaucratic process.
Point 1: Let’s say guns entirely were decided to be completely illegal except for law enforcement. That works for illegal drugs, right?
I agree with this, because our war on drugs is never over, and it’s amazing to think about how much money we pumped into it, yet you ask a kid in high school middle school and ask them where they can get marijuana, MDMA, cocaine and they can probably tell you.
Although I am against the use or distribution of illegal drugs, I know we have a failed system. Guns win on this point.
Point 2: Second Amendment interpretations: In 1773, it was a different time with one militia and not local law enforcement. They didn’t intend for everyone to possess a gun.
A lot of people will raise the question of the matter of our second amendment (”A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”) to imply this right was written with the belief that only one militia was provided, as opposed to our varying levels of local law enforcement.
Let’s interpret it in the 1700’s: African Americans and women don’t have the right to vote, slavery is legal, 13 colonies, etc. We need to balance the interpretation by reading the Constitution as neutral as possible, with no regard to time it was written or conditions that may have been affecting it.
Point 3: President Bush didn’t renew the Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) [enacted in 1994], we’re going to have more people dying or more criminals with more dangerous weapons.
False. Even though the act did expire in September 2004, very few crimes were observed in relation to the bill expiring. The AWB did very little, primarily, prohibiting larger volume magazines, telescoping stocks, and pistol grips from being used in weapons. You can learn more about the AWB at Wikipedia.
—
Having that said, I believe we just need to maintain the laws we currently have and not get caught up in the semantics about the definition of an “assault weapon,” specifically, monitoring the effectiveness of background checks, testing for security issues and finding loopholes.
Gun control has always been a hot topic, because everyone feels they have the answer to it. The truth is, restricting weapons isn’t going to lower violence. The supply and demand theory doesn’t apply. If someone wants to kill you, they will do it by means of themselves, knives, or whatever free objects available. Murder (or DV) is a behavior. The weapon is not killing the victims, it’s the criminals who commit crime.
Rumor has it, given that there’s a very high probability of a democratic president, the AWB of 2007 could be re-enacted with even more stringent provisions. Get your guns now, before they only hold ten rounds. 
I’m thinking about getting either a Mossberg 12 Gauge or Bushmaster XM-15. I like the coverage of a shotgun, but I also want the precision of a full rifle. I’ve always like the aesthetics of a carbine and appreciate the complexity of a carbine, too.
What do you think? Should the government continue its regulation and restrictions on firearms? Let me know in the comments.
Tags: debate, discussion, freedom, gun control, laws
In my previous entry discussing why I’ve switched to Ubuntu, a pro-Windows user, Zotok, suggests that Microsoft [creates] the most secure Operating System[s] to date. While some will shake their head in disagreement, let’s look at the facts and find out OS is the most secure.
Zotok, an avid user of Windows who intends on eventually switching to Mac, cites his source of information to an Inquirer article, Symantec tells world that Windows is most secure OS, states that Symantec ranks Windows Vista first, Red Hat second, and Apple third. I find this report rather interesting because Symantec typically spits agenda along the lines of political scare-tactics with PC users to make sure they’ve purchased Norton. As the world turn, not even Norton can protect you any more. Further, he suggests that Microsoft has over 40,000 security engineers who make certain our favorite OS isn’t plagued with hacks.
Ubuntu, which is a community developed spawn of Debian, was only issued 213 Secunia advisories since 2005. A majority of those problems were minor to medium risk and all of them — yes, 100% — have been fixed by the vendor. Secunia is an independent computer security firm who assesses security risks in the IT industry.
Microsoft, which produces popular operating systems such as Windows XP and Vista, has 183 advisories for Windows XP and eight Windows Vista advisories dated from 2003. The average risk of the issues is “Medium/High,” so the severity of these issues and the impact is significantly higher than Ubuntu. However, there is still a current unpatched 16-25% of all advisories that currently exist.
For completeness of this entry, I decided to take a look at OpenBSD, a free Unix-based operating system. Since 2003, there have been a total of 81 advisories related to OpenBSD, and 100% of those have been successfully patched. Those advisories have been rated “Less to Moderate” in terms of criticalness of the issue. OpenBSD prides itself on security and it is clearly evident by those statistics.
So the lesson learned here today, is that is not how many vulnerabilities you have or how many security engineers you throw at them — but the overall impact on what the vulnerabilities have to users and how a vendor patches them. Microsoft which is historically the most insecure operating system, is always playing catch-up in terms of security and the facts are quite clear they still have more to go.
You could potentially have 100 vulnerabiltiies, but they won’t do one bit of damage of 100 are patched. By that rule, Linux and Unix are the obvious winners in this comparison.
What do you think about the suggestion that Windows is the Most Secure OS ever? Share you thoughts (and facts) in the comments!
[tags]Windows, Microsoft, Ubuntu, Linux, Security, Comparison, WTF, OpenBSD[/tags]
Tags: debate, Discussions, Linux, microsoft, Security
If you haven’t learned already, small changes bring big results. The small change in regards to enforcing school policies, now leads into a larger case of Freedom of Speech. Joseph Frederick, a high school senior, displayed a 14-foot banner in the name of humor, “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.”
As a result of Frederick’s display, the sign was confiscated by his principal and he was suspended from school. The student is contesting this response, and has escalated to the United States Supreme Court regarding how far a school’s right to interfere with a student’s right to free speech can reach (such as onto public property).
While I agree that schools need to have policies against harassment and must have a stance on discouraging use of illegal substances, I don’t believe the school’s principal is just in suspending the student from classroom time. If I want to write a sign that says “It’s Miller Time!” then I damn well should retain the right to display a sign like this on a public street. Even a conservative blogger agrees. As long a public display is not slandering or advocating direct substance use, it should be permitted under school jurisdiction.
I fully endorse and support Joseph Frederick’s fight for his civil right to free speech. Damn, I wish he had a blog, cause he’d get some mad hits right about now.
Our country’s forefathers would be turning in their grave, knowing that government institutions continue to impede a student’s right to free speech, rather than embrace our rights in the great country. That’s the point.
[tags] Bong Hits 4 Jesus, Supreme Court, Freedom of Speech, Civil Rights[/tags]
Tags: debate, freedom, Government, laws, Rants