Slashdot Mirror

I cannot wait for the day that I can get in my car and punch in a destination and sit back and read a book or idly stare out the window!

I don't understand why you insist on punching in your destination. You know, the basic concept has been around for a while, and it even works with voice recognition. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimanddi/124346198/

Here's a visualization which shows what the result would have been if the same votes had been used to decide the number of seats (a simple version of proportional representation):
http://alexbowyer.blogspot.com/2010/05/what-would-have-happened-last-night-if.html

Also, here's some visualizations of alternative Proportional Representation systems and the effects they'd have:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25541021@N00/4594758955/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cocoia/4172250707/

That's a pretty dang good point.

No, it's not..

Oh, that's right: VLC is developed by a megacorporation with close knowledge of Apple's secret internal APIs, and not a small team of Open Source developers. That's why their software can play back the same MP4 stream with 1/3 the CPU of Adobe's.

I did this in just 3 minutes using CS5 (results on the left). Whoever did the test did a really sloppy job. I am confident that this photo could be repaired to near perfection using other PS tools in about an hour or so. Content-aware fill is just a good starting point. See: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4041/4581718360_e2ea3500bd_o.jpg

The NIMBY folks who snivel about wind turbines are welcome to a deep draught of "Deepwater Horizon" (or Exxon Valdez, or to go way back, Torrey Canyon) to go with their oily fish dinner.

Another huge advantage, wind power is reversible. Once you burn coal or oil and release it into the atmosphere, it's pretty hard to get back.

If the wind farm off Nantucket or whatever really proved to be horribly ugly, it could be moved.

Sure, it would cost a few bucks, but it's doable.

Go to Salt Lake sometime and look to the west. What you will see is a decapitated mountain; the world's largest copper mine (Bingham County mine) It sure looks bad, and it will never be fixed.

This was a Triumph!
That was a Joke. Haha. Fat Chance.
I'm making a note here: EPIC FAIL.

The cake is no lie: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3077/2588746706_e393a221d9.jpg

I first caught a virus in 1991. And it was also the last time in personal level. But professionally, I also caught one in 2001. Here is the story:

I was teaching some basic skills to people who had been asking me to help them learn how to surf the Internet, use eMail, and create and print documents. Despite my preference to Lynx/Mosaic/Netscape and then Mozilla, I wanted to give the students the standard experience -- the stuff almost everyone was using: Windows XP, Office XP and IE6.

I had fully updated and secured the systems with a few policies against unsigned activeX and taught the students to avoid clicking OK to messages that would install new software, despite the misleading text saying "the manufacturer asserts that this content is safe" in which YES WAS THE DEFAULT ACTION. I knew dozens of people who had installed dialers on their systems due to that design, but I thought that if no code would be installed, we would be safe.

Yet after a week, one of the systems had its home page changed into a porn site. It was a virus; the process could be killed only to be revived in seconds. Searched the web and found it was one of the worst viruses ever made; it had injected itself on system files of both partitions; no tools existed to remove it, so the entire disk had to be formatted.

I asked some other guys, who were doing this thing at a professional level, if they had the same problem and yes, they all did. But they figured that it wasn't an issue since the students were at the basic level and they wouldn't have important files to lose. They also wanted to conform to the exams who would require an additional process if an "alternate" browser was taught to the student. I found that unacceptable. Teaching basic skills to people should also have included basic principles. And at the time, avoiding Internet Explorer had to be such a principle.

My problem wasn't that some hacker had found their way to run code with IE. That was simply a mistake from Microsoft. But the fact that Microsoft would allow installation of software based on the message I linked above and considering that IE was the defacto browser of new, inexperienced Windows users -- now that was bordering with either malice or stupidity. Of course things must have changed since then, especially with IE8 and sandboxing, but the problem is not that I have simply lost my trust to IE -- it's that I find it counter-productive to try and get it back. Trusting IE again would require effort which I have no reason to make since the alternative (Firefox) is simply great.

Then comes the issue about standards. Yes, like many others here I've wasted time trying to make pages work in IE6 work the same way they do in Mozilla and Opera. Again IE8 is improved, but when I read people in Slashdot saying that IE6 is the only problem, I smell astroturfing. Hey fanboys, did you check IE8 Acid3 scores lately ? It's worse to what Firefox, Opera and Safari had been ages ago!

After all, Flash is essential for the web:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gruber/4564503719/

Right? Right??

We've got a contract, so we can't just bail, but when it is up, that'll be the end of it. It isn't because of the Internet, though -- HD reception via satellite is much better quality than the vast majority of Internet streaming video. The reason why is that the programming is just terrible. The things that they put on television simply aren't the things that entertain me and mine. It doesn't matter where you get your programming if watching it makes you feel like you're wasting your time.

We do still have the Internet if something comes up we need to know about, and it's likely to be both more timely, and available on demand, news in particular. News networks - CNN, FOX, etc. - are just pitiful. FOX is like a work of (bad) fiction, and CNN is a reach-around fest for the clueless. Half a country can be in ruins and the top story on CNN will be that some Hollywood marriage is breaking up.

As far as what we continue to use the television for, there's still plenty without broadcast: XBox 360/HDDVD (yeah, we have a few), PS3/Bluray, Wii, DVD, and our media Mac. It isn't like we aren't entertained -- far from it. We've got an adequate collection of movies and games, too.

Television is probably the technology that had the most potential to be a force for good in our society. Today, it seems to me to be the technology that has least lived up to its potential. Not that it hasn't matured technically, no question that it has, but that the content is, socially speaking, crap.

There's some kind of thing that goes on in marketing, entertainment, and politics that almost always seems to go for the left side of the Gaussian, as if collecting the not-so-clever is easier than collecting the clever. Maybe it's just that simple. All I know for sure is that currently, television content is mind-numbingly awful, and on the rare occasion that they produce something worth watching, it rarely survives the seasonal cullings by the networks. And in the end, you can get all the shows on a DVD or Bluray (if you're lucky), and watch them without commercials, in very good quality, as many times as you like, and furthermore, you can legitimately loan 'em to your friends.

We've got a contract, so we can't just bail, but when it is up, that'll be the end of it. It isn't because of the Internet, though -- HD reception via satellite is much better quality than the vast majority of Internet streaming video. The reason why is that the programming is just terrible. The things that they put on television simply aren't the things that entertain me and mine. It doesn't matter where you get your programming if watching it makes you feel like you're wasting your time.

We do still have the Internet if something comes up we need to know about, and it's likely to be both more timely, and available on demand, news in particular. News networks - CNN, FOX, etc. - are just pitiful. FOX is like a work of (bad) fiction, and CNN is a reach-around fest for the clueless. Half a country can be in ruins and the top story on CNN will be that some Hollywood marriage is breaking up.

As far as what we continue to use the television for, there's still plenty without broadcast: XBox 360/HDDVD (yeah, we have a few), PS3/Bluray, Wii, DVD, and our media Mac. It isn't like we aren't entertained -- far from it. We've got an adequate collection of movies and games, too.

Television is probably the technology that had the most potential to be a force for good in our society. Today, it seems to me to be the technology that has least lived up to its potential. Not that it hasn't matured technically, no question that it has, but that the content is, socially speaking, crap.

There's some kind of thing that goes on in marketing, entertainment, and politics that almost always seems to go for the left side of the Gaussian, as if collecting the not-so-clever is easier than collecting the clever. Maybe it's just that simple. All I know for sure is that currently, television content is mind-numbingly awful, and on the rare occasion that they produce something worth watching, it rarely survives the seasonal cullings by the networks. And in the end, you can get all the shows on a DVD or Bluray (if you're lucky), and watch them without commercials, in very good quality, as many times as you like, and furthermore, you can legitimately loan 'em to your friends.

If you don't know what GPL and GNU are for, GTFO.
If you think Firefox is a decent GNU/Linux application, GTFO.
If you're still looking for the Control Panel, GTFO.
If you don't know Tux from SCO, GTFO.

Bandwagon jumpers are not welcome among real GNU/Linux users. Keep your filthy Windows fingers to yourself.

Wow! The gloves are off! I wonder if anybody at Adobe is regretting mouthing off so much about Apple being closed?

Stare at this picture for 9 hours: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14584559@N03/4502059275/

Every hour or so, say "position report"

Congratulations, you have experienced what a pilot encounters for the majority of a transatlantic flight. If you're ambitious, you can even fake some cockpit announcements.

I am currently doing flight training to a commercial pilot level. One of the things I do as a skills practice is fly on MS Flight Simulator using the VATSIM (Virtual Air Traffic Simulation) network - http://www.vatsim.net/ - and I routinely fly transoceanic flights. We fly with real airline callsigns, following real aircraft routes and timetables. The instrumentation and controls are (for the most part) the same as the real thing. The Flight Management Computers in the simulated planes are exactly the same as the real thing. If you have good equipment, the hands-on controls are almost the same. It's a fun way to pass the time and keep skills up to date...BUT:

It's so boring! Here is an example of what I look at for 9 hours without touching anything: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14584559@N03/4502059275/

When you've got 9+ hours of looking at nothing, and you only have to make radio contact once an hour (North Atlantic Track position reports) there is actually nothing to do. At most, you scan the instruments every couple minutes. Even on the flight sim, I usually resort to what we call "In-flight Movies" which is essentially pull up Hulu and watch something until we next have to change the aircraft controls, which is usually when leaving land or making landfall on the other side.

You have a cruising altitude which is held by a computer, and a heading which follows a little line on your on-board GPS, and a speed which is usually also controlled by a computer(or if not, it's setting a lever to a certain position and leaving it there). There is literally NOTHING for the pilot to do if they can't have some sort of distraction. Some real-world pilots I have flown with read a newspaper or magazine, some play with a Game Boy, DS, PSP, etc Some get up and walk through the passenger cabin just like a "How are you, how's it going?" sort of thing. Almost like a chef in a restaurant would come out to the dining area and ask how people's food is.

On top of the endless boredom, they don't get paid nearly enough. Pilots have one of the lowest returns on their education costs of any profession. Throw in the fact that their skills are there to protect hundreds of lives at a time, and you'd think they would be well-paid.

Making regulations that prohibit them from minor distractions in the course of this endless boredom will most likely lead to highly detrimental results. I would not be surprised to see that there were more incidents with pilots falling asleep than previously as these regulations begin to take effect.

Very disappointing, FAA. Maybe you could instead start regulating things that jack up travel prices, waste fuel, and cause extreme delays, like airlines selling more flights in and out of airports than the runways can physically accommodate in a given amount of time. Or like the stupid TSA requirements that we are subjected to as passengers on commercial airlines.

The airlines are failing, and it's their own damn fault. Unnecessary regulation like this is a waste of taxpayers' time and money, and pushes prospective customers and employees away from the industry.

You mean "Loose Tweets Sinks Fleets" like in this poster: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctabu/3657942692/

That's the difference between what law enforcement says, and what the real law says. When a uniformed DHS officer is standing in front of you saying that you're endangering national security you have two choices. You can say "Sorry sir, I won't take any pictures and I will be leaving now.", or you can argue the point, end up in handcuffs and be taken away to jail so your lawyer can (hopefully) argue that there was nothing illegal about doing it. When the representative of the government says "It was for national security issues, which cannot be discussed without everyone having the necessary security clearance, and even then it's on a need to know basis. I therefore cannot disclose the reasons for it. Suffice it to say he was intentionally endangering national security."

    We all have to know when is a good time to fight, and when is a time to gracefully step away from a freedom endangering situation. I'm sure there will be better incidents to fight against. In my situation, since there were no witnesses other than myself, a friend, DHS and SO, if I disappeared under the guise of national security, no one would ever know where I went or why.

    If you're interested, these are the photos that weren't shot.

    Why do I hear silent black helicopters over my house, and what's that black van doing parked out front?

I don't know how many flights were grounded, but I worked on some planes that passed through the cloud. When popping some panels to change the reading lights, I would find small piles of ash (more like gray sand) up inside. Nobody seemed too concerned about it. They probably figured they would clean it up during the next "C" inspection(they tear out the entire interior). And the engines would probably remain until somebody complains about reduced power or high turbine temps or fuel consumption. Now, if you want to really wreck an airplane, fly it through some hail. And be ready for a tremendous noise.

when my 'plastic firewall' gave up about 5 yrs ago, I got a soekris netbsd box. I drove down to his location near santa cruz to buy it there. it was expensive ($400 for it with box and psu) but it was a nicely supported fanless cf-boot based firewall.

I recently moved to a new house and had to renumber my network. the soekris has an easy web interface (monowall) and I was up and running quickly.

been running for years, now. in a diff class than the typical plastic firewalls you get at BB.

(found photo of it that I took:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/linux-works/1655498926/ )

...a 6 year old kid isn't a terrorist...

Never trust anyone over three

You definitely cannot in Germany. Here's one random link: http://www.flickr.com/groups/canttakepictureshere/discuss/72057594072672584/

Anything can happen in America! Why Michael Jackson was born a poor black boy and died a very rich woman - or close to it.

I wouldn't worry about this. Youtube very happily takes down whatever, but just go back in a few weeks and it's up again. Just off the top of my head, here's a clip about Ron Paul that Fox had taken down, there are a multitude of Simpson's clips up there now and for a long time when youtube first started those were all being taken down, and IIRC at one point musicians or the RIAA were forcing people to take down homemade music videos that people had posted. Eventually whoever is issuing the notices will get tired and give up. Sure you can try to do this, but it's a lot like trying to keep the tide from washing your sand castle away, it's a hopeless battle.

By the way, I saw this movie in the theater for a foreign film festival. It made it all the more funny to see the viral videos start popping up since I remembered the scene vividly and it's a pretty powerful movie. Although, I saw it with a German girl and her comment was that Hitler movies were passe in germany since so many had been made. I thought it was good though.

According to John Gruber, this photo of Jobs's office was taken early yesterday.

I really can't praise Gtk2-Perl enough. Using Glade to quickly build your GUI, and Perl to quickly build your logic, it's a knock-out combination.

Heh, I'll see your GUI and raise you transparency. I've got a little dashboard applet that uses X11::Aosd to display a translucent status display for all my key servers. Yes, I know I just re-invented Conky, but because it's Perl I can use SSH::RPC in the back end to securely talk to my servers in order to get quick and dirty performance metrics.

One of the things scripting does well is to chop tasks into small, manageable steps. While system monitoring is a complex and demanding process, all I really need on my desktop is something about as sophisticated as a baby monitor. In the first instance, I don't need to know what's wrong; I just need to know that something's wrong.

Screenshot here, if you're into that kind of thing. It's simple and slightly boring, really, but that's by design. It's not supposed to sing and dance, and above all, it's not supposed to cry wolf. It's just supposed to sit there quietly and let me know that my servers are healthy and happily chugging along.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/09/29/193234/A-Geek-Funeral Then 1/4 million views later... http://www.flickr.com/photos/26445696@N04/3961372594/ everyone knows he passed away. As an added benefit this gives you geek street cred in the afterlife since he's now the top Google response for searchs like "computer urn" or "Geek Funeral" and will probably hold that position for some time.

And I'm not sure what you are betting on.

I'm betting that probably 99% of iPhone users will never hear about this and even they did they would give a resigned yawn and not care.

Those that do hear will rant viciously about it, only to forget it happened within the week. The vast majority will continue to use their iPhone, purchase another is lost or broken, and may even upgrade.

For an example of this behavior in alpha-male geeks, see the Modern Warfare 2 'boycott'. Most people will rant about it, but not change their purchasing decisions, which is why Apple/IW/every other company can do almost whatever they want without hurting their bottom line.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2782/4454969320_a34f2800c8.jpg

Photo caption
"Exhausted workers taking a break by The National Labor Committee.
These teenagers work for the KYE factory in China, which manufactures computer mice and webcams for Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Samsung, Best Buy, Foxconn, Acer, Logitech, and other US companies. The factory violates every labor law in China, with grueling, long hours at an exhausting work pace. KYE recruits hundreds of "work study students" 16 and 17 years of age, who work 15-hour shifts, six and seven days a week".

Just dig up the privy.

Here's Ben Franklin's:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/2571265145/

They missed the largest data center in the world, the @Tokyo data center in Tokyo, Japan. It's over 1.5 million square feet, large enough to have it's own train station (Shintoyosu station). It sits on a piece of land out in Tokyo Bay in the section of the city known as Odaiba. I had a chance to do some work there a couple years ago when Lehman had a lot of space there (my pictures of the data center are here http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexkane/sets/72157623651979353/).

Some more info on the @Tokyo data center can be found on the web:

Google map:
http://tinyurl.com/y6djuzo

http://www.jpix.ad.jp/en/service/site_info.html "The academic IX NSPIXP2 is located here.The total floor space in the building is 140,000 square meters which is the largest scale data center in the world."

We’ve been there before, and intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.” -- Apple

Is Apple actually calling iTunes for Windows for a sub-standard app? That perhaps should be banned from the platform? Apple themselves are using non-native API intermediate layers such as CoreFoundation and CoreGraphics in their implementation of iTunes for Windows.

shot at sun's (internal) 10th anniv java party in santa clara:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/19/121338473_07823a9da0_b.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/221/472512518_f105cdd983_o.jpg

(just a canon pocket cam, not an slr or anything good)

those photos need captions; left as an exercise to the reader.

this was one of the few 'sun parties' I remember in my 5 yrs there; sun just didn't have many events like that in the final few years ;(

but this was a nice/fun one.

shot at sun's (internal) 10th anniv java party in santa clara:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/19/121338473_07823a9da0_b.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/221/472512518_f105cdd983_o.jpg

(just a canon pocket cam, not an slr or anything good)

those photos need captions; left as an exercise to the reader.

this was one of the few 'sun parties' I remember in my 5 yrs there; sun just didn't have many events like that in the final few years ;(

but this was a nice/fun one.

I understand the reasons why it has preferred H.264 over Theora, but it is really nice to see that it also understands the reasons why we should be preferring an open format instead.

Am I the only one seeing the contradiction here ? Really ?

Sometimes I think that Google is about the only company that "gets it."

Sometimes I think that Google just didn't "get it" in the first place when choosing H.264 for youtube.

Maybe it was nothing more than a "Microsoft-ish" tactic to push Google Chrome over Firefox, Opera, Chromium etc.
You know, one of these "if your product isn't used enough, make an every-day used platform/technology incompatible with its competitors."

Promotion by incompatibility is the reason I use Linux and look for open standards and technologies. And I don't think Google's contradictory position is helping those.
You see, as long as you use H.264 in real life, promoting Vorbis-Theora is nothing more than hypocrisy and getting good publicity.

Anyway, there is no way I ever forgive Google anytime soon.

Windows-anything handling your money is Just Not a Good Idea.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27159137@N08/3186737368/

You might want to weigh your own confidence against the authority of the person making claims you disagree with before launching into an attack.

I don't really understand your objection to a), and I think Marcan's claims about b) are justified but deserve a bit of clarification. It's not so simple; as Michael Steil discusses, the efforts (piracy vs homebrew) often leverage each others' work. The only reason you can "run homebrew [on the Wii] without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs" is that ... we were able to bootstrap our efforts by using modified disc images, which requires modifying the DVD drive to accept burned discs. The first unsigned code execution we demonstrated used a patched Lego Star Wars disc with code injected into it. Later, we used the same technique to inject debugging code into a copy of Zelda, and then used that to facilitate making a save-game exploit that ultimately did not require hardware modification.

It might have been possible to reach that end goal in some different way, but it would have been much more difficult.

I should weigh my own confidence against and authority that is demonstrably incorrect? How so? You have no idea what my authority is, nor do I care to advertise the fact. In fact, my authority is immaterial since you can verify my claims against countless sites around the web.

My objection to a) is the claim that somehow the pro-piracy people are crappy hackers. It is, as I've said, demonstrably false. If you believe otherwise, please provide a definition of a "good" hacker.

The claims about b) are refuted by your own quote - piracy and homebrew leverage each others works, so by Marcan claiming that piracy piggybacks on homebrew, and there is no return in the other direction, his statements are again, demonstrably false.

It's funny, because it's fairly clear that neither yourself nor Marcan were around in the days of NES or Atari 2600 piracy. Since the days of the first consoles, the pirates have _always_ been clever and impressive in defeating the obstacles in front of them to pirate the games. I remember being amazed at the NES and SMS piracy contraptions that were available and the sheer engineering that had to go into them. It's one of the things that got me interested in hardware hacking as opposed to working purely with software.

Make absolutely no mistake - if homebrew didn't exist, the pirates would still have found a way to exploit the consoles. Just because the homebrew may have made the way easier/faster does not mean it wouldn't have happened. Otherwise - why would there have been console piracy before homebrew was even a consideration on a console? I mean... if pirates are such poor hackers, there's no way they could have figured out how to pirate every game console ever made.

First post! Seriously though, just went to Chernobyl about 3 weeks ago, and seeing it is surreal. I wasn't alive when it happened, but going through the amusement park they had just built was just remarkable. I took a lot of pictures, and my favorite one is from the school we went to, found a child size gas mask, something you wouldn't expect to find in a school, but nice regardless. If you want to see more pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sswezey/ . I would definitely recommend going to see it, and Kiev is a cool city to see for a day as well

Are you serious? Every household should have one of these around!

No, there are two words to explain that: Other OS. Check out this table (slightly outdated, it's a year old or so) by console hacker Michael Steil (or watch him talk about it on any of his talks). Every console post-PS2 was hacked for homebrew, and then those hacks were abused for piracy. The PS3 comes with homebrew, therefore there is little motivation to crack the native system. Pro-piracy people are rarely good hackers, and need homebrew to piggyback on.

This is just plain BS. Piracy on modern consoles (at least in the case of the Xbox 360 and Wii) involve bypassing the DVD drive's built in security check. This really has nothing to do with homebrew and you can, in fact, run homebrew on either system without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs. So your statement that pro-piracy people are a) rarely good hackers and b) are piggybacking on homebrew is complete crap.

Get your facts straight before commenting on something you obviously know nothing about.

You might want to weigh your own confidence against the authority of the person making claims you disagree with before launching into an attack.

I don't really understand your objection to a), and I think Marcan's claims about b) are justified but deserve a bit of clarification. It's not so simple; as Michael Steil discusses, the efforts (piracy vs homebrew) often leverage each others' work. The only reason you can "run homebrew [on the Wii] without modifying the DVD drive to accept pirated discs" is that ... we were able to bootstrap our efforts by using modified disc images, which requires modifying the DVD drive to accept burned discs. The first unsigned code execution we demonstrated used a patched Lego Star Wars disc with code injected into it. Later, we used the same technique to inject debugging code into a copy of Zelda, and then used that to facilitate making a save-game exploit that ultimately did not require hardware modification.

It might have been possible to reach that end goal in some different way, but it would have been much more difficult.

Obviously Google let the US do this because they asked nicely, China just took it and Google said that was jsut impolite.
Also - http://citizenx.org/wp-content/republican-fascism.jpg or http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2187/2368696288_c10d8e8a95_o.jpg

Your pick of party.

I should probably get up off my ass and get my own mail server up and running.

I suppose you attended one of their rally's

You must be one of the people who writes their signs, or should I say "sign's"?

It's the Scrabble Tea Party Edition! Me fail English? Unpossible.

Here are some photos I took of auroras generated by the leading edge of this GMF disturbance in northeastern Montana.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/st3f4n/sets/72157616350171741/

Enjoy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomworger/509169005/

I was just checking out these files and Gephi for a project and thought how cool they looked.

As a testimonial to careful color selection, the original graph on the article looks more like a cross between a drain clog and a petri dish seeded by an epileptic robot.

Interesting that the diagrams for Python show a focus on django. Selection bias perhaps? A comparison with say sf.net would be interesting. How many other large python projects have public code repositories available (things like Eve Online would be hidden) for similar data mining?

Showing the segregation of php is curious. It certainly raised a number of questions in my mind. Do any other programming language communities look like this? Over time? What would an animation of the evolution of these projects detail? Does the low cohesiveness imply anything about the nature of php projects?

The flikr page is also interesting. The Perl community looks heavily intertwined. As an old (+3 O'Reilly book) language with many different developers, many who operate in corporate walled gardens, it is surprising to see such massive interconnection in the final graph even with hints of segregation.

This is not the droid you're looking for.

And that's why their position is wrong. Under their rules, any copyrighted material be entirely legal for filesharing. Once everything is legal and free on the internet, good luck selling anything.

Look at the plethora of bottled water manufacturers. How the hell do they make any money when it's legal and free to fill up a bottle from any tap?
PROTIP: it's called adding value, business innovation, and marketing.

Let's be honest here. The Pirate Party believes non-commercial filesharing for a song that came out 5 minutes ago should be 100% legal.

IMHO it should be. I still buy concert tickets, merchandise, DVDs, CDs etc. of artists I like. Why should the law be used to prop up an obsolete business model? Let's be honest here: filesharing is hurting record labels much more than it's hurting real artists. Just ask them.

And then those companies that use that copyrighted material immediately have their work on the internet for free.

It is anyway.

For example, if a movie wants to use someone's song in the soundtrack, they have to pay for it. Unfortunately, the movie itself is available for free on the internet (by the Pirate Party's rules). So, the movie-creators don't make any money. So, they can't afford to pay the musician for his music.

Except that Cinemas aren't struggling by any means. Neither are TV networks, hotels, etc. that would pay for the material. Plus I know I would still pay to have a hard copy of awesome movies like Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness!

The Pirate Party's filesharing stance makes sure that even the "companies have to pay for copyrighted material" stance becomes a lame duck. The only case where creators could get paid is by selling their copyrighted work is in advertisements - e.g. a musician could make money when his money is used in a Car ad, because the Pirate Party hasn't undermined the car-sales market.

I missed the part where the Pirate Party stops artists from touring, selling merchandise, selling CDs, selling DVDs etc. etc.

So, yes, I stand by my original claim: the Pirate Party wants to gut copyright law - making it almost worthless.

None of your claims stand. Including this one.

So many interesting things there.

By the way, is this War's horse?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/makerfaire_uk/4438050834/in/pool-makerfaire_uk

It would look something like this....