Isotropic is …
... my personal blog.
Unless otherwise indicated, anything I write here is simply my personal, probably ill-formed, opinion and does not represent the views, beliefs, positions, or opinions of any other person or entity.
Tag Archives: rights
08 Sep 2009
School phone searches
As much as I think schools should have some leeway to maintain order and safety, particularly with younger children, I’m on the side of the student here. It’s one thing to confiscate a phone until the end of the day, but to take it, search it, and turn it over to the police? The article [...]
28 Aug 2009
Big Media time travel
I just ran across this comment-reply by Nina Paley on her post Your Children Are Not Your Children. I suppose if the Star Trek replicator ever comes into being, the Faberges will try to litigate it out of existence, to preserve their old business model. The Faberges will have to time-travel to the Future to [...]
18 Jul 2009
Digital Ownership
Just what does it mean to own something? Back when anything of interest had a tangible, physical instantiation, it was pretty clear … “possession is nine tenths of the law” as the saying goes. Yet again Amazon’s Kindle has demonstrated that our “common sense” view of ownership has not kept up with the times. In [...]
26 Jun 2009
Gimme your passwords!
Wow! Would you really want to work for these people? The city government in Bozeman, Montana, isn’t content to cyberstalk its potential employees—they’re now asking applicants for their login information for any social networking sites. –John Timmer, City to job applicants: Facebook, MySpace log-ins please, Ars Technica, 2009-06-18 According to the article, a waiver form [...]
03 Dec 2008
Welcome to the Gray Entity Society
I suppose I’m a (lowercase) libertarian; according to The World’s Shortest Libertarian FAQ, the simple definition of a libertarian “is someone who, in general, supports government policies that favor individual liberty in all matters, whether economic, personal, or social”. Until you offend me, of course … then I become a self-righteous prick. I ran across [...]
