Slashdot Mirror

Google Analytics is a little more sophisticated tool that requires you to embed a little bit of their code on every one of your pages. Also free to use.

For totally custom reporting, move your log data to the database following the guide I wrote earlier this year.

Nobody wants a picture of a bunch of nudists on their desktop.

And in what society is killing people fine?

How did the Amish react to this atrocity?

That evening they gathered together and organised a horse and buggy to visit the family of Charles Carl Roberts with food and sympathy. They invited the killer's widow to the family funerals. They bought a lock for their schoolroom door. Now they aim to establish two funds, one for the families of the dead girls, one to provide for the killers family.

Out of a horrific incident, the Amish showed what faith in God really was, turning even that horror into a demonstration of the highest principles of their faith.

Requiring that all checkins be accompanied by unit test code is ridiculous because two developers working on the same code will need to update not only the code itself but also any test cases that rely on the behavior of the executing code.

It probably will hurt your ego to learn that ridiculous liberal myths are a meme and the most popular variant is The "Moon".

It probably will hurt your ego to learn that ridiculous liberal myths are a meme and the most popular variant is The "Moon".

I guess you're really buying the corporate justification argument. Copyrights, patents, trade secrets, were not created to benefit society at large, but to create IP rights.

Copyrights, patents, trade secrets, were not created to benefit society at large, but to create IP rights.

"What difference does it make ? You know you are going bankrupt anyway because people aren't interested in CD's anymore."

Psst, hey buddy, the post in question is plagiarized and it's 4 years old.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=77984&cid=6925 930
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/10/2/103735/275

YHBT.
HTH.

--
BMO

The U.S. Feral Government has been busy telling us that fish is healthy, and that we should eat at least a serving a week. This ignores problems like mercury and PCB contamination, not to mention severe overfishing of the world's oceans. Also, farmed salmon just doesn't taste right, and is an ecological disaster in progress to boot. Search for 'salmon sea lice' for information on how salmon farms in Canada infect their wild cousins with lice, devastating the wild salmon runs in certain areas.

I've stopped eating fish - partially because it's expensive to get good wild salmon, but mainly because I think I can do better for less of a financial outlay. I figure that fish are best eaten for their Omega-3 essential fatty acid, and I can get that fat elsewhere. I buy grass-fed beef from a family farmer, and omega-3 enriched eggs when I can't find any eggs from local farmers. The omega-3 enrichment in eggs typically comes from flax in the chicken feed.

I'm currently growing purslane in my Earthbox, and am working on some Perilla seedlings too. Both are high in omega 3 (in the form of alpha-linolenic acid [ALA]), and I plan on eating them as salad greens. (Summer heat kills plants in the desert, so fall/winter/spring are the best growing months.)

And if I ever start raising chickens, I can grow Perilla and Purslane as feed for home-grown DHA and EPA-enriched eggs (letting the chickens do the ALA->DHA/EPA conversion).

a) Is "global warming" really happening?

Unless you are being perversely skeptical, the answer to that is "yes". We have historical temperature records going back to 1850. You can read the FAQ for such datasets and download the data for yourself if you like, or read the articles detailing data collection, analysis, and uncertainties. There is an obvious upward trend.

Going back further requires use of proxy data such as tree rings, ice cores, coral data, glaciers, etc. There have been numerous different studies by different scientists collecting, and cross referencing such data to create historical temperature reconstructions. Here is a plot showing 10 different reconstructions by various authors. There is some variability, but the recent upward trend is again clear. Again, you can get the datasets yourself, and read more reports detailing how they are analysed. At about this point skeptics point to Greenland being green, or Wine growing in Europe in 1000AD, but I've discussed those before, so I won't go into detail again.

The result is that, to claim that the earth is not presently getting warmer requires either a belief that limate scientists are almost universally incompetent, or that they are colluding en masse in a grand conspiracy to falsify data and delude the public. Either of those options would seem, to me, to be a much greater leap of faith than simply assuming that the world is, indeed, getting warmer. As I said, it requires a rather perverse skepticism more on par with 9/11 conspiracy theorists like the maker of Loose Change.

b) If "global warming" is really happening, is it due to anything mankind is doing?

An interesting question. Certainly mankind is doing something: since 1850 atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen from around 280ppm to 385ppm. That's a significant change - in fact given atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the last 650,000 years (via ice core data) the current levels are 5.5 standard deviations from the mean; that's significant! Are humans responsible for this change? Certainly it correlates with the industrial revolution, but still... As it happens we can do isotope analysis of atmospheric carbon dioxide, since isotope ratios for fossil fuels are different from thoses of the rest of the carbon cycle. It turns out that indeed, the sudden increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is from humans burning fossil fuels. Now a little basic physics and the absorption spectra of carbon dioxide is enough to tell us that we should expect greater atmospheric carbon dioxide to result in a warmer planet. It turns out that is indeed what we are seeing, and that it correlates well. There's more than just that however. Have a read through the chapter on attribution of the IPCC Third Assessment report. A wide variety of techniques are used to attempt to attribute the observed warming to various potential causes. The end result is that the IPCC found that while warming prior to 1950 could possibly be accounted for by other factors, including solar variation, warming since 1950 can only be reasonably accounted for via anthropogenic atmospheric carbon dioxide. Feel f

Undocumented features and API use: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/15/71552/7795

This is my personal account of curing my asthma and hayfever by deliberately infesting myself with the intestinal parasite hookworm.

There is a difference between the Windows stack being "based on BSD code", and have left over fragments of code from their original NT4 stack. Even if the WIndows stack was completely based on BSD code, nobody give a shit besides fringe lunatics like you who think proprietary software is "evil".

i'm also here

i mean thanks for the heads up in case someone was stealing my words, but no thanks for the suggestion that crossposting is somehow wrong

"Sorry, but I like retaining the rights to my software, and I want those rights to improve the software.

With the BSD license, you retain the rights to your software and you have the right to improve the software. Perhaps you should go read the BSD license agian?

"Call it a protection against HUMAN GREED."

So taking away certain rights away from those that use your sourcecode is not a form of greed?

"People everyday reap the benefits of GNU software licensing, and fail to make the connection that its the source code and the restrictions to force people to PLAY NICE and not be greedy little thought police wishing to control our lives and wallets because they don't want us to see what the hell the machines are doing with our data."

People every day reap the benefits of BSD software licensing, and fail to make the connection that it the source code and the lack of restrictions that allowed such widespread adoption of the things we takes for granted today.

"All in the name of some kind of "intellectual property" B.S."

Without that "Intelectualy property B.S.", the GPL would be nothing more than a plea to the people that download your source code.

"If software is ever going to improve, the leachers have to stop stealing other peoples work, incoporating that work into software and then claim its all theirs and you don't get the source code."

It's also not stealing because the license allows it. Also, the BSD license prohibits claiming that it's 'all yours'.

"AND more importantly, that labor shouldn't be able to be compromised in any way by stealing source code and incorporating it into software we now don't get the source code for, and are stuck with: ALA Micosoft's IP stack for Windows 2000."

The Windows 2000 IP stack was not based on BSD code. If it was, it probably would have performed better.

The story to read is this one.

Reminds me of the Uberman's sleep cycle, sleep 30 mins every 4 hours, it's been on /. a few times...I don't think I can do it because I tend to go out and have drinks on the weekends...

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/15/103358/720

The question is whether or not the additional income from increased ticket sales at live shows and merchandise sold (even additional recordings) to people who otherwise wouldn't have heard of the band more than compensates for the potential income lost from sales of DRM-protected recordings to people who have already heard of the band. My own personal belief is that those people who have tried it (like Janis Ian) have found that it does. In any case, as Cory Doctorow put it in a speech to Microsoft:

No Sony customer woke up one morning and said, "Damn, I wish Sony would devote some expensive engineering effort in order that I may do less with my music."

Although the number of case studies on the music
industry in this area is not large, a number of US
based studies show that less than 2 percent of
works have any commercial value at all 55 - 75
years after they were created and that more
material is released by publishers when sound
recordings enter the public domain than when still
in-copyright.

I will take an example. Dr Johnson died fifty-six years ago. ...
Now, would the knowledge that this copyright would exist in 1841 have been a source of gratification to Johnson? Would it have stimulated his exertions? Would it have once drawn him out of his bed before noon? ...
I firmly believe not. I firmly believe that a hundred years ago, when he was writing our debates for the Gentleman's Magazine, he would very much rather have had twopence to buy a plate of shin of beef at a cook's shop underground. Considered as a reward to him, the difference between a twenty years' and sixty years' term of posthumous copyright would have been nothing or next to nothing.

So go to Digg and stay off Slashdot. Or go muck around on Kuro5hin, the site that completely obsoleted Slashdot five years ago.

This should explain all...

kuro5hin.org

that really hurts when you left the office with your PC password locked and running a ssh session doing something unspeakbly long on a Linux server.

So... What is a Planet Again?

the issue centers on one the IAU itself says it hasn't addressed with it's new definition of a planet: extrasolar systems. as new telescopes come on line with more resolving power, our bestiary of planets is going to grow by leaps and bounds. it will render the debate over pluto moot

i think a definition of planet should be:
-round, with a significant atmosphere
-this is distinct from a gas giant, which should be considered closer to stars than to planets (round, mostly gas: really just stars without enough critical mass to ignite fusion)
-and distinct from a moon (no atmosphere, but still round)
-asteroids, comets, etc make up the miscellany

and notice, most importantly, i said nothing about what something orbits. what something orbits is really secondary in consideration to what something is composed of. if we find an earth-like "moon" orbiting a gas giant in another solar system, is what it orbits really the first consideration in picking what to call it? no, composition should come first, orbit second. so you could have a moon of the sun (pluto), or a planet of saturn (titan), or an asteroid of mars (deimos/ phobos, etc.)

so this system demotes not only pluto, but also mercury. while promoting titan. so our solar system is composed of:
-4 planets (venus, earth, mars, titan)
-4 gas giants (jupiter, saturn, neptune, uranus)
-and countless moons (of the sun and the planets)/ asteroids (of the sun and the planets)/ comets/ ring systems/ kuiper belt, oort cloud objects/ etc

really, as we see more and more exotic arrangements in extrasolar systems as new telescopes come on line, this debate about pluto will look more and more pedantic. and the IAU should really begin focusing on a more rigid definition no matter what, something they said they weren't doing at their last congress. we will soon have a vastly larger catalogue of strange orbital objects/ arrangements out there. pluto is small potatoes... literally

Yet, Slashdot is probably a better model for academic review than the current system, because Slashdot permits many more people to contribute and it permits a true discussion between authors and among reviewers. An even better model might be Digg because it also permits the stories to be peer selected.

Kuro5hin is a great example of how peer review can work very well - most of the time. Articles only make it through the voting queue if they get 70 more "accept" votes than "reject" votes. A typical conference paper gets reviewed by about three people. In general, typos, grammatical mistakes, poor english and boring prose in accepted articles are rare; on the other hand, k5 has some trouble with dupe accounts and users who will vote for anything with profanity in the title, so sometimes the voting results seem a little arbitrary.

If someone were to set up a journal according to the K5 model, it seems reasonable to initally invite some professors into the system as reviewers, then allow new users to become reviewers by getting an article accepted, or getting invited in by someone who is already a reviewer (though perhaps the number of invites should be limited to prevent one person from inviting hundreds of people).

I remember Digg the first time around, when it was called Kuro5hin.

I visited Digg a while back. It offered nothing I hadn't seen on Slashdot or Fark, and furthermore there's no filter for me to ignore the sensationalist pseudo-political bullshit on Digg like there is on Slashdot.

Have fun with the Alexa rankings, though. As MySpace has proven, if something is more popular it must be better.

</sourgrapes>

Somebody on kuro5hin.org posted a really good FAQ of how feelings that cause stress (outrage, fear, anger, etc) can end up in clinical depression. I dug it up here.

The basic idea is that stuff which triggers adrenaline, will also slowly build up cortisol levels. Once your cortisol levels reach some threshhold (different for each individual), you'll become clinically depressed. Once you're clinically depressed, your ability to cope with normal life activities is greatly reduced, which causes more stress (and thus adrenaline), which prevents your cortisol levels from ever decreasing, thus trapping you in the clinical depression.

One of the interesting results about this viewpoint of depression was that, once you are experiencing clinical depression, any exercise that is vigorous enough to stimulate adrenaline will prevent you from going out of the depression (although it might make you feel good temporarily).

So... What is a Planet Again?

i'm basically saying that as we discover more and more exotic extrasolar orbital arrangements out there, the meaning of "planet" will come under ever-increasing fluidity

so basically i am saying:
1. anything round with an atmosphere is a planet. in other words titan is a "planet of saturn"
2. anything round without an atmosphere is a moon. in other words mercury is a "moon of the sun"
3. a gas giant should come to mean something different than a planet... something more akin to a star, since gas giants really are nothing but stars not massive enough to start fusing. a little more mass and we'd be in a binary star system, with jupiter shining bright
4. anything non-round=asteroid

my basic point is that the "what it is made of" should come to mean something different than the "what it orbits", and the "what it is made of" should be more important in our nomenclature than the "what it orbits." is mercury more interesting than titan? no. so why is mercury amongst the pantheon of planets and titan relegated to lowly moon status along with captured asteroids and other forlorn rocks?

titan certainly is more interesting to us than mercury, simply because it has an atmosphere. and our nomenclature should reflect that. why is something as complex and interesting as titan just a moon, like deimos and phobos, which aren't really "moon"s either, but just captured asteroids? and why is mercury a planet? it could never be as interesting as titan. having an atmosphere means something significant, MORE significant than orbital focus

look: elephants eat plants. so do ants. is that a valid system for classifying elephants and ants together, and keeping elephants apart from lions? not at all. lions and elephants are mammals, ants are insects. elephants should be classed closer to lions than to ants, because the "what it eats" is LESS important than the "how it is designed" in zoology. and this makes obvious sense. why should planetary classification be any different?

just like with planets and moons: the "what it is made of" is more interesting and important to us (titan is more important than mercury is to us) than the "what it orbits", mercury is just a moon. titan is a planet

our nomenclature should focus on composition over orbital focus. and our current system of placing orbital focus over composition will be shown to be more and more broken as our catalogue of satellites grows and grows as we discover more and more exotic extrasolar arrangements

[...]And that's why Microsoft, when it sought the best implementation of TCP/IP for Windows, took the one in BSD Unix[...]

Copyright infringement is NOT theft.

I've seen that argument so many times, but let me present you with this scenario. If you come up with an idea that is unique, and some schmuck takes that idea and beats you to the USPTO with it, don't you consider that idea stolen? Of course you do. But why? You haven't lost the idea.

Alright, here's the (hopefully definitive) solution to this argument.

The problem here is semantics: we're trying to use the words "stolen" and "theft" in three different ways. They have a legal definition, a colloquial definition, and an emotional connotation.

The GP is correct: the legal definition of "theft" is not the same as the legal definition of "copyright infringment.

You're correct: people often use the word "stolen" to describe a wide variety of property-related wrongs done to them, regardless of whether it fits the legal definition or not.

So, both of you are correct... yet you're contradicting each other. How can that be?

Well, that rests with the third (emotive) use of the word. The GP insists that copyright infringment is not theft because he feels that theft of real property is a greater moral offense than copying of "intellectual property," and therefore to equate the two is unfair. You say the opposite, because (apparently) you feel that copying of "intellectual property" is equally morally wrong as theft of real property. Thus the disagreement.

Now, here's where my bias comes in: we need to break the tie.

First of all, I agree with the GP: I say that copyright infringment is not only not as morally wrong as theft, but that in many cases it isn't morally wrong at all. I say this because copyright was never about protecting "intellectual property" to begin with. Instead, it is a social contract that exists for the purpose of maximizing the benefit to society. Therefore, when considering the merits of copyright, the effect it has on society as a whole is the only thing that matters, and that monopoly consideration afforded to individual artists is irrelevant. In fact, the artist never had any property rights to begin with: when a work is created it automatically becomes Public Domain but is then leased back to the artist, with the payment having been the original creation of it.

Second, you don't have to take my word on this; the writings of the guy who created the copyright clause in the Constitution (i.e., Thomas Jefferson) make his position quite clear. See: 1, 2.

Ich Bindawalross (London) - GNAA (NYSE: GNAA) President timecop released a statement today regarding the immediate Internet release of MacOS X for the x86 architecture, available on many BitTorrent networks. After making the statement, timecop yielded the stage to a second speaker at the press conference, Apple Computer co-Founder and CEO, Steve "Rim" Jobs, now fully recovered from his recent gender reassignment surgery to field questions from attending press members.

"We here at Apple Computerth [sic] have decided on a slightly different path for the upcoming version of the MacOS X," Jobs states before bursting out into high pitched giggles. "We have replaced our overpriced and bloated software with an efficient and easy-to-use interface. I would like to take this opportunity to announce a merger larger than a Zimbabwe nigger cock: GNAA and Apple Computer."

Returning to the podium, timecop began speaking again, while Steve Jobs submitted to orally pleasuring his ten inch nigger cock. "Dedicated faggots have been loyally purchasing the homosexual software and hardware abomination that is Macintosh computers. Apple has been striving to provide software customers with the most flambouyantly homosexual combination available. However, in recent days, this hasn't been enough.

"There has been increasing pressure from the disgustingly obese Lunix nerds and the socially well-adjusted and popular Windows users to convert, as well as pressure from OS X emulators to provide consumers with increasingly gay products. Apple Computer has decided to merge with GNAA in order to broaden the appeal and better serve the interests of all those who buy Macintosh products. Furthermore, we will adopt Apple's "Step 2 ???? PROFIT!" marketing model. This will also stop Apple from going out of business, which they probably would have otherwise."

At this point, timecop paused and deposited a quart of Gaynigger seed into Steve Jobs' mouth.

"GNAApple is committed to our new OS X86. Rather than give the user the difficulty of finding pornography themselves, we provide them with the classic hello.jpg, redundantly archived and brand labeled throughout the 950 MB DVD image, as well as a bundled copy of GPA (Gay Porn Avalanche). Now, greater efficiency in masturbatory pursuits can be provided to all."

"As Slashdot users, many of you might have been exposed to the pirated release, and information pertaining to it. We would like to thank Rob "CmdrCocko" Malda for running the first article, leading to the release of information about our upcoming merger. We would also like to extend our gratitude to thepiratebay.org and XiSO for helping us spread the release over the 'underground scene.' We thank you, the IRC channels who put it on their hacked .edu xdcc bots and fserves who hosted it on your dialup connections.

Steve Jobs, recovering from the large dosage of AIDS from the variety of syphilitic, festering sores of GNAA members, rose to his feet at this point during the press conference. "Our previous versions of OS X were released prematurely, and as a result the operating system was unstable and fragile. Our team of software engineers have also decided to abandon the weak and inefficient UNIX backside in favor of a more efficient and robust alternative: WinNT. The pirated version of our new operating system has had record acclaim from users of the Jewish-based internet news organization known as "Slashdot".

"Those doubting the superiority of our new release need only read user testimonials."

"The Torrent going around as: Mac OS X Tiger X86 READNFO-XISO It's a complete fake. When the image is booted it shows a picture of a guy showing off his Bu** H**e." - Anon Coward

"if you unrar, burn, and boot like the .nfo file says, it just boots it to a very lovely goatse image. no joke, wast

As an atheist, I'd like to stick to a language created by an atheist.

When I begin to code, I stop trying to follow the rules and logic of my own experience over the years. Instead I allow the divine spirit take my hand and control the code that is written.

When reading the topic first thing came to mind was this poopypeanutz story on k5:
chickengeorge.mpg . So this has become reality?

AST?

Rubic's cube isn't really a very good example of the kinds of problems people solve in the real world. It has too many "group symmetries". I like symmetry as much as the next guy -- believe me, more actually -- but be reasonable.

But even in those special instances where one has a Rubic's cube kind of problem, the proof that it is solvable in at most N steps is relevant only if the use to which the cube is being put requires such a small number of steps. If it does then that is the use case and you can't get around it. If there is no constraint on the number of steps (unlikely) then the sole criteria is the simplest specification of a universal solution.

God, we have come a long way haven't we - now Apple will cease & desist you for linking to their Service Manual.

God, how I miss the old Apple :-(

A few days ago, I was feeling the same way.

LK

I can see the coder-geek authorbase as the primary cause of Wikipedia's problems. Here are the issues I've noticed in the past. Many of these examples may have been rectified, but they still exist in countless other forms:

They're insidiously opinionated. Instead of saying wasabi is "fried with peas," they say it is "considered quite tasty with fried peas." Gee, "tasty" is completely objective I guess, not a matter of personal, ahem, taste, at all. Someone tries to argue them down, but they know they're "right," after all they learned C++ when they were 10.

They miss the forest for the trees. The article on AIDS has wonderful information on the disease's origins, treatment and spread throughout the world. Too bad there's no fucking organization to anything in the article, and the section titled, "Global epidemic" is precisely redundant with the one named, "Current status." It's like the typical geek's desk, awash in code printouts and spec sheets. There's good stuff in there, somewhere (he's sure) but he'll be damned if he can make any sense out of it (but hey it's like a puzzle and those are fun). He should just print one more copy instead of checking if it's already there, and organizing his shit.

They don't know how to write. If the spelling and language mechanics are correct, then it's good writing (which is like saying that any code that compiles is good code). There's no rule in Strunk & White about too many clauses in one sentence! Thus, the writing is perfect. Decent style, flowing sentences, consistent tone and voice are only for the weak-minded; hackers are made of sterner stuff (well, mentally).

They're obsessed with dumb trivia. Every article must have its "In popular culture" section, just to prove that they, like Ken Jennings, know stupid references to everything.

They don't know jackshit about page layout. Does every table need a full set of borders? Must LaTeX equations be fucking huge? Why can't editors use a color wheel (or common sense) to choose nicely matching colors? Deitel & Deitel is not the standard on typesetting or formatting; use a textbook that had an editor as a guide on page layout, like "Fundamentals of Aerodynamics" by Anderson. Clean tables without distracting borders, equations modestly marked by centering and italics (no huge font necessary), headings used only when needed. It's black and white because colors would be superfluous. But it's fun on Wikipedia to add superfluous formatting, it's just like adding new features to software. Oooh, shiney! Instead of featuritis, it's sectionitist, bolditis, table-itis.

So that's what I think ails Wikipedia in a nutshell. Many of these are addressed by Wikipedia policies, but when even Wikipedia's founder (Jimbo Wales) dislikes following them, how will they ever gain decent implementation? Especially when any editor with half a brain who does support them is just another uncool, uptight elitist who should be ignored. It's no wonder that Wikipedia today is still a nightmare of good information. Citing Wikipedia at the college level is still academic suicide. Unless their policies and people change throughout the chain of command, Wikipedia will never evolve to a real authoritative source that is a true encyclopedia. It's fun to read, but only as accurate and objective as the rest of the internet.

As does The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

Scoop details here.

Huh, some perl driven web apps:
http://www.slashcode.com/
http://scoop.kuro5hin.org/

I have been trolled. Hope this helps. Have a nice day.

Personally I prefer Java Servlets, with perl a second place, then python, then bash, then C, then php.

I've written a piece comparing global warming deniers to Loose-Change-9/11-conspiracy-theorists. Not quite as provocative, but edging in the right direction...

In practice global warming deniers are probably most similar to evolution deniers - and that could certainly make for good flamebait material here.

Truth is stranger than fiction, sometimes. :)

Yeah, he'd probably end up like this. :)

have you seen what meth does to people?
Have you seen what kind of lives people who do meth have to look forward to assuming they didn't do meth? For a lot of people, life sucks, and it's not surprising they turn to drugs.

We had expected IBM to stay for about three months, which all by itself would have blown our budget, given their $325/hr bill rate. But they were in our company for more than seven months, burning through more than a quarter million dollars a week. And Global Services wasn't the entirety of the IBM damage. We still had licensing and support fees for Websphere, Websphere Portal, Websphere Content Management, Tivoli Access Manager, and DB2.

IBM, which had promoted itself to lead vendor and integrator, had overpromised, overcharged, and underdelivered. We ended up with an overly complex enterprise portal with a few off-the-shelf portlets and a few integrated applications. Many application integration efforts had to be abandoned. It's unlikely that those apps will ever be in the portal, and the jury is still out on whether the portal will be a success. None of those slick knowledge management presentations we saw at the beginning of the project bore any resemblance to our outcome, and that original consultant was nowhere to be found.

And maybe that Apple might be grateful for the protest, as it'd give them more leverage next time they're negotiation with the RIAA?

I've posted before that ultimately, no form of DRM can be reasonable. Apple's may be more lenient than most, for which kudos to them. But it's still going to prevent all sorts of fair, licensed and/or legal use, and will do so more and more in future. A protest to the greatest provider of DRM, even if not the most heinous, doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

Indeed it is, here is an old article I wrote about this same subject. From the article:

A system that works best for recording and tracking each and every individual transfer of creative work will serve to diminish that work. A system that works to give that creative work to its audience in its purest form, without restrictions will both reward the audience and the creator (though the artist will not be nearly as financially supported by his work).

We would have never seen many of Da Vinci's works if he had access to technology that imposed expiration dates on his writings. We know he used encryption in his work, so just allow yourself jump a step further.

the guy who wrote the article said he was having a hardtime due to piracy.. he sells christian music yet he buys adult toys

From http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/10/2/103735/275
"Unlike CDs, it's harder to copy books over The Internet."

All I can say is " ... "

I found the other post by the same person on kuro5hin more amusing. From http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2003/9/17/205524/ 956/1#1more amusing.