ThaddeusQuay2

The only good TOS is one whose URL returns a 404.

For an architect ought not to be and cannot be such a philologian as was Aristarchus, although not illiterate; nor a musician like Aristoxenus, though not absolutely ignorant of music; nor a painter like Apelles, though not unskilful in drawing; nor a sculptor such as was Myron or Polyclitus, though not unacquainted with the plastic art; nor again a physician like Hippocrates, though not ignorant of medicine; nor in the other sciences need he excel in each, though he should not be unskilful in them. For, in the midst of all this great variety of subjects, an individual cannot attain to perfection in each, because it is scarcely in his power to take in and comprehend the general theories of them.

Still, it is not architects alone that cannot in all matters reach perfection, but even men who individually practise specialties in the arts do not all attain to the highest point of merit. Therefore, if among artists working each in a single field not all, but only a few in an entire generation acquire fame, and that with difficulty, how can an architect, who has to be skilful in many arts, accomplish not merely the feat -- in itself a great marvel -- of being deficient in none of them, but also that of surpassing all those artists who have devoted themselves with unremitting industry to single fields?

- from The Ten Books on Architecture by Vitruvius Pollio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_architectura

http://gutenberg.org/etext/20239

Taxes are not involved in the question. When it comes to US cases, FB only has to follow US laws. Therefore, data generated by US-based users should not be retained.

3) I'm using Chrome v18.0.1025.151m.

4) That almost guarantees that I won't be using your service. Effectively having "Report this image for abuse." everywhere, is one of the most egregious enablers of today's online censorship. I don't expect you to solve this problem, but you should at least attempt something different.

5) What do my private pages have to do with the community? If you provide private pages, then only a subset of the TOS should apply to them.

1) I would pay for private pages.

2) Of the 8 trending/new items, only 2 are linked.

3) On @knobreak, there are 20 photos, but the top says 166.

4) What will you do when @childporn begins to trend?

5) You don't have a TOS, which is awesome, because I hate censorship. Can I assume that you will eventually install the standard one, which forbids pretty much everything, depending on interpretation at your sole discretion?

FB is an American company, and the crime of which the article speaks happened in the US, and the article you cite says:

"The United States does not have any Internet Service Provider (ISP) data retention laws similar to the European Data Retention Directive. All attempts have failed:"

THEREFORE: Under what law was FB required to retain the data, which was eventually handed over under subpoena?

"Keeping track of these records is required by law."

What law? Which records? There are websites, such as those which provide anonymous web access, which say that they don't keep any records, or keep IP addresses only, or keep records for no more than 30 days, or whatever. Are they lying to us, or are they intentionally breaking some law? Exactly how can I be forced to keep any kind of log, for any period of time?

If that's the case, then why did consuming nothing but freshly-juiced fruits and vegetables (6 kale leaves, 1 cucumber, 4 celery stalks, 2 green apples, 1/2 lemon, 1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, with some variation of amounts and ingredients, taken as many times per day as required to feel full) literally save the lives of these two guys (Joe Cross and Phil Staples)? I understand that it's an infomercial for the lifestyle brand "Reboot Your Life", disguised as a documentary, but if it's for real, then the results are truly impressive. I ask because I'm seriously considering doing an all-out, 3-month fast like they supposedly did in the film. Thanks in advance for any useful info which anyone can give me about the efficacy and safety of this regimen.

http://hulu.com/watch/289122/fat-sick-and-nearly-dead (Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead)(2011)

http://JoinTheReboot.com

"I'm really looking forward to future biofeedback tech. It'd be interesting to know my blood sugar level and heart rate at all times."

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bt-lv6IJPxc (animation of a hypothetical, nanotech-based, dermal display)

P.S. I have a reply to your McLuhan comment, but I've been too busy/lazy to have typed it out yet.

The color of the envelope does not change the message it contains. The only difference between what I write to you online and what I would say to you in person is one of detail and quality, as I have more opportunity online to compose. The problem of rudeness and insults is not due to any inherent flaw of the Internet itself, but rather due to the fact that most children aren't taught that anonymity, although a necessity, is not for the purpose of becoming unaccountable.

"Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority ... It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation -- and their ideas from suppression -- at the hand of an intolerant society."

http://groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20051007151046741 (The First Amendment Right to Anonymous Speech - Delaware Supreme Court Ruling in John Doe No. 1 v. Cahill)(2005-OCT-15)

If the data contained on your servers is bothersome enough to the US, then their military will simply bomb your tiny state out of existence, which is made even simpler if there is no one around to stand up for you. I've had this idea, both in the form of a small country, like yours, and in the form of a large ship, forever sailing the world's oceans, never docking anywhere, but both are easy targets. Far up in space or deep down in the ocean are likely the only good scenarios, and neither of those is cheap or easy.

"'Death to the Jews,' is that an incitement to action or an idea?"

Neither. It's an opinion, which should not only be allowed, but there should not even be a debate. Also, people seem to forget that, up until recently, it was okay to say that you wanted the death of an entire group of people. What wasn't okay was to single out a specific, identifiable person. Now, the former is becoming the norm, and you can see this actually covered in many online Terms of Service, which is, on its face, ridiculous in the extreme.

"But I don't think anyone is saying that 'hate speech' is just the expression of ideas. It's the expression of ideas that is held to incite criminal and/or illegal behaviour."

I AM SAYING THAT. I am not liable for the thoughts which you have when you see the swastika on my arm, yet that same swastika can get me arrested in some places. Likewise, I am not liable for the thoughts which you have when you hear certain words that I might say. I don't control what goes on inside of your brain when certain auditory or visual impulses hit it.

I AM SERIOUSLY UPSET THAT THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE LIKE YOU IN THIS WORLD. You actually believe that the mere conveyance of opinion should be banned because it might cause someone to do something. Think about what kind of world your children and their children will have if this kind of thinking becomes even more pervasive.

The true meaning of life is to continuously evolve towards some end, of which we are presently unaware. Said evolution requires unfettered communication to proceed apace, especially given that "evolution" is now becoming less rampantly biological and more self-directed, such as through technology, particularly nanotechnology. When said communication is censored, in any fashion, evolutionary progress is hampered. Thus, any act of censorship stands against life itself, and is therefore "evil" in the truest sense of the word. That is my belief. It's extreme, it's in the minority, it's completely at odds with yours, and I will firmly hold onto this belief until the day I die.

Waste can be mitigated by designing the power supplies in the form of interchangeable packs, which can be moved from one generation of flying machine to the next. Risk can be mitigated with good design principles, overall, and advances usually aren't made by people who are afraid of handling risk. That only leaves performance as the real issue. If my quadcopter's chemical battery allows for 1 hour of flight with a load of 1 pound, then how do I increase the time or the load by a significant factor, when required? Unless there is some major breakthrough in chemical batteries, it seems that nuclear is the only real option here. Therefore: Can we build, using today's technology, a nuclear battery (or even a reactor) which can power quadcopters and mechanical bees [1]?

I use the combined example of quadcopters and bees because, perceptually, they appear to be on the same physical level (as opposed to a rock versus a molecule, for instance), but they require very different design decisions as to how they are powered. Chemical processes used for a quadcopter won't easily translate to a bee (unless we are using something exotic, such as ATP manipulated by nanotech), whereas nuclear processes could easily transition between the scales occupied by the quadcopter and the bee.

NOTE TO SELF: Write a children's technology coloring book called "The Quadcopter and the Bee", and after some initial success, turn it into a series of eyewatering, yet thought-inducing, books and movies, thus making lots of money, which would in turn be used for your "Nuclear Batteries Are Us" startup.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3606394

"Sadly there is no reasonable path to doing this legally."

There is, and that's to get "everyone" to do it. I recall the recent HN-linked article [1], which called for a large number of people to demand a trial, rather than take a plea deal, because that would collapse the system. Or, if everyone carried a gun, openly, and without a permit, the government couldn't stop the practice because it wouldn't have the resources to disarm an entire, determined population. The same is true for these tiny flying machines. The main problem, though, is the expense, as it would be a lot easier for any given person to acquire a gun than to acquire one of these, but the principle is the same. That leads to the observation that the expense is there because of lack of innovation in the field, and said lack exists due to laws restricting the use of anything which could be built. The answer is to simply ignore the laws, while pursuing the best technical answers, such as, for example, applying the recently-developed techniques of self-assembly, from the creators of the Harvard Monolithic Bee [2], in an effort to drive down costs and democratize the process of construction and ownership of tiny copters, so that, in fact, pretty much everyone who wanted to could possess one.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3690481

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3606394

I understood it, but decided to take my response in another direction, with my input still having value for the general discussion. Anyway, DotTEL is British, which means that it will take the US a bit longer to take down than a DotCOM, but since I live in the US, no TLD will matter as far as arrest goes.

It's not only for phonebook data. Telnic, the company which manages DotTEL, uses [1] as their main example. For more examples, see "DotTEL of the Week" [2].

By "decoupling", I mean to get away from the mindset that your domain goes directly to your content, which is what we've all come to expect when we type in the URL and press ENTER. I envision my DotCOM redirecting to my DotTEL, which has: 1) a very short description of what it's all about, 2) a link to a long description, 3) a link to a chatroom, 4) a link to a forum, whose content might be mirrored, in realtime, to one or two other forum providers, which would also be linked on the DotTEL, thus providing continuity for important material, and 5) links to any other webapp or content that I could possibly want to include. Also, I can quickly modify the DotTEL with status info about myself or about any of my links.

The bottom line is that my DotTEL becomes an anchor for all of my stuff. Of course, I don't anticipate that everyone will simply convert, as most people will come up with objections as to why their content or their audience can't or won't switch or be switched to this intermediate format, but it will work fine for me, and I assume for a good number of people who want some measure of protection when faced with the aftermath of their DotCOM being seized.

[1] http://justin.tel

[2] http://www.nic.tel/community-weeklytel.html

I'm not big on trying to get myself ranked high in search engines, but I am switching all of my DotCOMs to redirect to the corresponding DotTELs, and I'll let visitors know, somewhere near the top of the DotTEL, that this is what they should bookmark or remember to use if the DotCOM disappears. DotTEL is controlled by UK law, so to lose that, someone needs to get a UK court order against you, or they need to convince DotTEL that you have broken their agreement. Of course, if the US wants to make an example out of you, it can exert pressure on the UK, given that they are best buddies on so many matters these days, but that's not going to happen to most people.

Correct. However, if you always redirect to somewhere else, and that somewhere else has an identity which really stands out, then people will get used to that destination. So, when the government takes away your DotCOM, your existing audience is already prepared with the knowledge of where to go to get your content. After some research, I believe that destination should be DotTEL, and I wrote about some of its features recently [1]. Lastly, I notice that I forgot to include there that DotTEL is also useful as a status page for the services handling the content to which it points.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3649087

http://rt.com/news/soviet-nuclear-petrov-stanislav-221 (Retired Soviet officer rewarded for averting nuclear war)(2012-FEB-25)

"You are angry at the republicans in the US, yet in general, the left wants more government control over our lives."

Democrats and Republicans are merely different sides of the same rusty coin.

Corporations are agents of the government, because they exist at the pleasure of the government. In the US, a corporation essentially requires a "license", which is comprised of a veritable tree of federal, state and local permissions, with the papers of incorporation being at the root. Much like a driver's license, which gives the holder the privilege of driving, a corporate license gives the corporation the privilege of doing business. There is no "right" to drive or to be a corporation, and therefore, a corporation will never willfully break the rules to the extent that the government would pull its metaphoric license to exist. Wishful thinking, wherein you see corporations as possibly becoming somehow righteous, cannot alter these basic facts.

"Imagine letting loose a swarm of quadrotors in a large building and having a complete map and textured 3D model of the interior and exterior within just a few hours."

This reminds me of: "I’ve long been interested in Navicubes, which is what I call a small and not-quite-here yet $5 box that always knows where it is, which direction it is facing, and which way is up. Besides vehicle nav, intelligent toys, and robotics, these would open up all sorts of neat tricks, such as a ball you could simply bounce off cave walls for mapping."

http://tinaja.com/glib/funstuff.pdf (Don Lancaster)(The Blatant Opportunist #72)(2002-NOV)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Lancaster

http://tinaja.com/navcub01.shtml

"As it is now, the vast majority of civilians have absolutely no idea what military service is like. In this lack of context everybody becomes really impressionable."

When you vote, you are exercising political authority. You are using force. And force, my friends, is violence, the supreme authority from which all other authority derives. Whether it is exerted by ten or ten billion, political authority is violence by degree. The people we call "citizens" have earned the right to wield it. Naked force has settled more issues in history than any other factor. The contrary opinion "violence never solves anything" is wishful thinking at its worst. People who forget that always pay. They pay with their lives and their freedom.

- Lieutenant Jean Rasczak

- http://imsdb.com/scripts/Starship-Troopers.html

DotTEL is nice because all of your information is stored in DNS, and so the webpage itself is created dynamically from DNS. Also, it can't go down due to a DOS attack. Well, actually, it can, but then all DotTELs would be down, and so the burden of rectifying it would be on the registrar, rather than on you. Given that such a problem would be treated as an emergency, by them, the response will likely be swift. However, their response might include deleting your domain, but that could happen with any registrar, for other reasons. Anyway, there are other nice things about DotTEL, and I strongly suggest that it warrants investigation, for practical use, by anyone who is already using DotCOM.

I understand why TPB moved away from DotCOM, but I don't understand why they moved to DotSE. However, I do know that they were put on trial for breaking Swedish copyright law. The trial resulted in fines and jail time, with their Supreme Court refusing to hear the appeal just this month. While the trial was happening, I read reports of many strange legal things going on in court, and I read opinions about this being due to inordinate influence of the industry on the Swedish government. Regardless of the veracity of those reports and opinions, it seems obvious that you wouldn't want to use the domain of a country where you have already been in serious legal trouble, and lost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pirate_Bay#Legal_issues

EDIT: DotTEL is not at all limited, as long as you can transition to the mindset of decoupling your content from its address.

EDIT: DotTEL answers pretty much all of the concerns regarding speed, in this other HN thread, from today.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3648956

DotSE is not at all trustworthy. Use DotTEL. Host nothing at MC.com, but rather have it redirect to MC.tel, and populate MC.tel with a link to the main page of your content, as well as links to mirrors of that content.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.tel

"Certainly, a HN thread won't end up filled with a side discussion about office restroom design."

I like those really tall faucets, the ones used by surgeons when they scrub in. I want one in my office restroom, so that I can easily wash up to my elbows after a messy coding session, and I don't care to listen to the moralists who tell me that those faucets are only for surgeons.

I live in Philadelphia, PA.

http://idea-sandbox.com/blog/2007/11/cocktail-napkin-noteboo...

This doesn't mean that they don't tend secret lime farms on the ocean floor.

How should I know any of that? I'm still busy designing NUBE's logo! Although, if we were to have lunch at a place which was cognizant enough of our needs to provide copious napkins, I would guess that one way to accomplish the goals of which you speak, would be to accrete, around the Earth, a solid shell consisting of asteroids, with plenty of space between the planet and the shell. The planet's surface would be heated due to a combination of the heat which escapes the core, and through the use of nuclear energy, in some fashion, because both of those sources would be trapped by the shell. The shell would obviously protect from space debris, and less obviously, due to its thickness and density, it would protect from the radiation likely to be encountered in deep space.

AsteroidShell = 3For1Deal!

Good idea. As a civilization, we're a bit behind on the big stuff. Personally, I'm starting NUBE: Nerds United for a Better Earth. We'll use nanotech to turn this planet into a death star, thereby mooting all of that space-related effort. Why build ships when we can just make the planet go?