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I've already answered, in detail. Here are the links: Police State: In USSA, cops hassle YOU! about my personal experience with the fourth amendment's complete lack of respect by the police forces both local and Federal, and the earlier Liberty? What liberty? that discusses each bill in the bill of rights with examples of how they are broken by an out of control government.

If there's any law I've seen recently that qualifies as police state, this is one.

You haven't been paying attention. Here are three more: drug laws, gambling laws, prostitution laws. At least they can lie that the Intellectual Pooperty laws have a "victim", even though they really DON'T have a victim.

No victim, no crime. Otherwise you have a police state.

Police State: In USSA, cops hassle YOU!
Liberty? What liberty?

-mcgrew

Whatever you call it, it is forbidden by law, so stop doing it.

Eldred was a miscarraige of justice. When Congress starts writing respectable laws, I'll respect the law. The current copyright laws are no more respectable than the marijuana laws.

However, stop sharing RIAA files because sharing RIAA files only helps the RIAA labels! If they didn't want you to hear it they wouldn't allow it on the radio. File sharing is free advertising, and the RIAA is against it because it is as useful to their competetion as it is to them, while they have radio and the competetion doesn't. If you want that new top-40 song, just plug your radio into your computer and "download" it from your radio.

How to rip from vinyl or tape or radio, and defeat any and all music DRM in the process! The linked file is an illegal thought crime under the DMCA.

Seems you're doing more to help piracy than hurt it

Their aim isn't to stop downloading of RIAA music; why would they? It's free advertising. If they had a problem with that then they wouldn't let their music be played on the radio. KSHE in St Louis plays seven whole albums, uncut and uninterrupted, every Sunday night and has been doing so for decades. I had Ted Nugent's Cat Scratch Fever on cassette a week before its release, recorded in full from KSHE. That was thirty years ago! You can sample from a radio even more easily than recording a cassette.

The RIAA's problem is that their competitors, the indie bands, are on baidu. Take all the indies off baidu and the RIAA will have no problem with it.

Nobody takes issue with free advertising unless a) it's their competetitor's free advertising or b) they're incredibly stupid.

I hear Bush gets his advice straight from Jesus.

That's not what I heard. I heard he gets his advice straight from Lucifer, who told him "pretend to be a Christain so you can be elected and destabilize the middle east with a bloody, meaningless war that costs thousands of lives, untold suffering, and drains the US treasury. As an oil man you'll become rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and there's nothing more important than personal power."

Jesus, otoh, said that the love of money is the root of all evil, that if a man asks for your coat give him your cloak as well, if a man hits you turn the other cheek and let him hit you again. If Jesus spoke to Bush, Bush was obviously not paying attention.

IHBT. HAND.

If their ages don't make it completely obvious

Spoken like a truly ignorant kid. Guys in their twenties come to me for advice on computers, kid. Can you write a battle tanks game in assembly and then hand-assemble it (without an assembler) and have it run, bug-free? I did.

And there are guys twenty and thirty years my senior, now retired, who used hollerith cards in their programming and make me look ignorant about computers.

You need to educate yourself. Your hatred of those with more experience than you limits your horizons and should be a great personal embarrassment to you.

1. Not future; in fact may have already jumped the shark (as has the phrase "jumped the shark")

2. "Fabric computing"? WTF is "Fabric computing"? Wikipedia leaves me ignorant, as does TFA. When I saw the phrase I thought of the first computer I ever saw in 1964. It was attached to a loom and wove a cloth bookmark out of thread with a design you entered with a very primitive light pen. It was the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life, but I doubt it's what these stupid yuppies are referring to.

4. Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms? WTF??? Yeah, I've seen that yupiespeak before. It's a diagram that shows the internet as a cloud and the phrase's user as a technology-clueless idiot.

5. Web mashups? 1999 called and wants its newspeak du jour back.

6. User Interface? Didn't ENIAC have an interface? Even if it was just plugs and wires?

7. Ubiquitous computing? Hey everybody, Gartner discovered the internet!

8. Contextual computing? You mean like not putting text data in a numeric field?

9. Augmented reality? I already have it, click my sig for details. You will be assimilated, resistance is futile.

10. Semantics? 1998 called, it wants its dotcom bubblegum back.

Whoever's paying these idiots has WAY too much money and WAY too little sense. It's all babbling designed not for dissimination of information but instead obfuscation of the fact that the speaker doesn't have a fucking clue but wants you to think he's "real smart".

Nothing to see here. Not even if you have three eyes.

The statement "my dad's generation smoked cigarettes, my generation smoked pot and the younger generation smokes crack" was meant to be a humorous jab. I was a butthead for 30 years. Stopping was the hardest thing I ever did (I chronicled my addiction and subsequent soppage a few years ago, google "how to quit smoking cigarettes" and it's still on the first page of results; it was a K5FP article) .

As to "more addictive than heroin", when I was in Thailand in the USAF in 1974 they had PURE heroin, over 99% pure (compared to the 2-5% in the US today). Every GI I met there abused something; we white first termers (mostly) smoked ourselves unconscious with that killer Thai stick (pot), lifers (mostly) stayed drunk in the NCO club when off duty, and the black first termers (mostly) smoked "rails". I say "mostly" because it wasn't universal; lots of black guys smoked pot, for instance.

To make a "rail" you took a Kool cigarette and loosened the tobacco, shaking much of it out. You then removed the filter, tore it in half lengthwise and reinserted it. You then dipped the tobacco end of the Kool into your 100% pure heroin and smoked it.

Some of these guys never smoked anything at all before going to Thailand. I met a few after returning to the states, and not a single one was still on heroin. However, every single one still smoked Kools!

A hooker I know is addicted to both crack and alcohol, and she's been through rehab a few times and tells me the alcohol addiction is worse than the crack addiction.

IMO no drug (except perhaps antibiotics) should be illegal.

You might be interested to read this, then.

If you haven't tried anything yet, use brute force! ;)

(Or offer him some home-made beer.)

Do you live in the United States of America? Also known as "The United States of Advertising?" (Bill Hicks)

Take the Microsoft Mafia Monopoly Challenge:

1. Walk into one or several of your local stores selling computers
2. Ask them what their computers have preloaded on them for an Operating System
3. If they reply, "Windows", inquire about other choices and note them if available (most won't have alternatives)
4. If they tell you every system is preloaded with Windows, note this and add a Windows logo flag next to the store name
5. Ask about the possibility of refunds for Windows should you purchase a preloaded Windows system and want a refund for the OS. Even if this isn't the way to go about it, ask about the refund anyway to see what they say, express your dismay at the limited choices and the forcing of Windows on desktops. A convicted monopoly should not continue to enjoy the luxury of a monopoly on the desktop
6. Compile this list and post it online somewhere visible, or coodinate your effort with others with sites like BoycottNovell.com and the like, groups of people collecting this information may wish to present it to the appropriate people in American government, to show how strong the Microsoft monopoly remains today, and how little the DOJ has leaned on Microsoft vs. other countries.

If the DOJ will do nothing further to stop Microsoft's continued monopoly in the United States, we must do something.

Microsoft is a convicted monopoly and it should not continue to enjoy the luxury of preloaded systems and mysterious OEM deals

In addition, archive/save the following articles before they disappear:

Microsoft's Dirty OEM-Secret
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110

Microsoft Caught Out
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/11/15/124827/52

Microsoft Exec: OEMs Must Not Install Linux Besides Windows
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/27/214930/249

Secret deals MS uses to control PC companies
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/06/10/secret_deals_ms_uses/

Congress: Clear the Air and Stop Preloads
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/50179/

Microsoft Getting Paid for Patents in Linux?
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=07/02/11/1443211

Microsoft: Open source is too complex
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39380307,00.htm

Microsoft: "Drug-Dealing Methods"
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7654

Do you live in the United States of America? Also known as "The United States of Advertising?" (Bill Hicks)

Take the Microsoft Mafia Monopoly Challenge:

1. Walk into one or several of your local stores selling computers
2. Ask them what their computers have preloaded on them for an Operating System
3. If they reply, "Windows", inquire about other choices and note them if available (most won't have alternatives)
4. If they tell you every system is preloaded with Windows, note this and add a Windows logo flag next to the store name
5. Ask about the possibility of refunds for Windows should you purchase a preloaded Windows system and want a refund for the OS. Even if this isn't the way to go about it, ask about the refund anyway to see what they say, express your dismay at the limited choices and the forcing of Windows on desktops. A convicted monopoly should not continue to enjoy the luxury of a monopoly on the desktop
6. Compile this list and post it online somewhere visible, or coodinate your effort with others with sites like BoycottNovell.com and the like, groups of people collecting this information may wish to present it to the appropriate people in American government, to show how strong the Microsoft monopoly remains today, and how little the DOJ has leaned on Microsoft vs. other countries.

If the DOJ will do nothing further to stop Microsoft's continued monopoly in the United States, we must do something.

Microsoft is a convicted monopoly and it should not continue to enjoy the luxury of preloaded systems and mysterious OEM deals

In addition, archive/save the following articles before they disappear:

Microsoft's Dirty OEM-Secret
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110

Microsoft Caught Out
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/11/15/124827/52

Microsoft Exec: OEMs Must Not Install Linux Besides Windows
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/27/214930/249

Secret deals MS uses to control PC companies
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/06/10/secret_deals_ms_uses/

Congress: Clear the Air and Stop Preloads
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/50179/

Microsoft Getting Paid for Patents in Linux?
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=07/02/11/1443211

Microsoft: Open source is too complex
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39380307,00.htm

Microsoft: "Drug-Dealing Methods"
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7654

Do you live in the United States of America? Also known as "The United States of Advertising?" (Bill Hicks)

Take the Microsoft Mafia Monopoly Challenge:

1. Walk into one or several of your local stores selling computers
2. Ask them what their computers have preloaded on them for an Operating System
3. If they reply, "Windows", inquire about other choices and note them if available (most won't have alternatives)
4. If they tell you every system is preloaded with Windows, note this and add a Windows logo flag next to the store name
5. Ask about the possibility of refunds for Windows should you purchase a preloaded Windows system and want a refund for the OS. Even if this isn't the way to go about it, ask about the refund anyway to see what they say, express your dismay at the limited choices and the forcing of Windows on desktops. A convicted monopoly should not continue to enjoy the luxury of a monopoly on the desktop
6. Compile this list and post it online somewhere visible, or coodinate your effort with others with sites like BoycottNovell.com and the like, groups of people collecting this information may wish to present it to the appropriate people in American government, to show how strong the Microsoft monopoly remains today, and how little the DOJ has leaned on Microsoft vs. other countries.

If the DOJ will do nothing further to stop Microsoft's continued monopoly in the United States, we must do something.

Microsoft is a convicted monopoly and it should not continue to enjoy the luxury of preloaded systems and mysterious OEM deals

In addition, archive/save the following articles before they disappear:

Microsoft's Dirty OEM-Secret
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110

Microsoft Caught Out
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/11/15/124827/52

Microsoft Exec: OEMs Must Not Install Linux Besides Windows
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/27/214930/249

Secret deals MS uses to control PC companies
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/06/10/secret_deals_ms_uses/

Congress: Clear the Air and Stop Preloads
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/50179/

Microsoft Getting Paid for Patents in Linux?
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=07/02/11/1443211

Microsoft: Open source is too complex
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39380307,00.htm

Microsoft: "Drug-Dealing Methods"
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7654

Do you live in the United States of America? Also known as "The United States of Advertising?" (Bill Hicks)

Take the Microsoft Mafia Monopoly Challenge:

1. Walk into one or several of your local stores selling computers
2. Ask them what their computers have preloaded on them for an Operating System
3. If they reply, "Windows", inquire about other choices and note them if available (most won't have alternatives)
4. If they tell you every system is preloaded with Windows, note this and add a Windows logo flag next to the store name
5. Ask about the possibility of refunds for Windows should you purchase a preloaded Windows system and want a refund for the OS. Even if this isn't the way to go about it, ask about the refund anyway to see what they say, express your dismay at the limited choices and the forcing of Windows on desktops. A convicted monopoly should not continue to enjoy the luxury of a monopoly on the desktop
6. Compile this list and post it online somewhere visible, or coodinate your effort with others with sites like BoycottNovell.com and the like, groups of people collecting this information may wish to present it to the appropriate people in American government, to show how strong the Microsoft monopoly remains today, and how little the DOJ has leaned on Microsoft vs. other countries.

If the DOJ will do nothing further to stop Microsoft's continued monopoly in the United States, we must do something.

Microsoft is a convicted monopoly and it should not continue to enjoy the luxury of preloaded systems and mysterious OEM deals

In addition, archive/save the following articles before they disappear:

Microsoft's Dirty OEM-Secret
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110

Microsoft Caught Out
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/11/15/124827/52

Microsoft Exec: OEMs Must Not Install Linux Besides Windows
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/27/214930/249

Secret deals MS uses to control PC companies
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/06/10/secret_deals_ms_uses/

Congress: Clear the Air and Stop Preloads
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/50179/

Microsoft Getting Paid for Patents in Linux?
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=07/02/11/1443211

Microsoft: Open source is too complex
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39380307,00.htm

Microsoft: "Drug-Dealing Methods"
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7654

Do you live in the United States of America? Also known as "The United States of Advertising?" (Bill Hicks)

Take the Microsoft Mafia Monopoly Challenge:

1. Walk into one or several of your local stores selling computers
2. Ask them what their computers have preloaded on them for an Operating System
3. If they reply, "Windows", inquire about other choices and note them if available (most won't have alternatives)
4. If they tell you every system is preloaded with Windows, note this and add a Windows logo flag next to the store name
5. Ask about the possibility of refunds for Windows should you purchase a preloaded Windows system and want a refund for the OS. Even if this isn't the way to go about it, ask about the refund anyway to see what they say, express your dismay at the limited choices and the forcing of Windows on desktops. A convicted monopoly should not continue to enjoy the luxury of a monopoly on the desktop
6. Compile this list and post it online somewhere visible, or coodinate your effort with others with sites like BoycottNovell.com and the like, groups of people collecting this information may wish to present it to the appropriate people in American government, to show how strong the Microsoft monopoly remains today, and how little the DOJ has leaned on Microsoft vs. other countries.

If the DOJ will do nothing further to stop Microsoft's continued monopoly in the United States, we must do something.

Microsoft is a convicted monopoly and it should not continue to enjoy the luxury of preloaded systems and mysterious OEM deals

In addition, archive/save the following articles before they disappear:

Microsoft's Dirty OEM-Secret
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110

Microsoft Caught Out
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/11/15/124827/52

Microsoft Exec: OEMs Must Not Install Linux Besides Windows
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/27/214930/249

Secret deals MS uses to control PC companies
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/06/10/secret_deals_ms_uses/

Congress: Clear the Air and Stop Preloads
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/50179/

Microsoft Getting Paid for Patents in Linux?
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=07/02/11/1443211

Microsoft: Open source is too complex
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39380307,00.htm

Microsoft: "Drug-Dealing Methods"
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7654

Do you live in the United States of America? Also known as "The United States of Advertising?" (Bill Hicks)

Take the Microsoft Mafia Monopoly Challenge:

1. Walk into one or several of your local stores selling computers
2. Ask them what their computers have preloaded on them for an Operating System
3. If they reply, "Windows", inquire about other choices and note them if available (most won't have alternatives)
4. If they tell you every system is preloaded with Windows, note this and add a Windows logo flag next to the store name
5. Ask about the possibility of refunds for Windows should you purchase a preloaded Windows system and want a refund for the OS. Even if this isn't the way to go about it, ask about the refund anyway to see what they say, express your dismay at the limited choices and the forcing of Windows on desktops. A convicted monopoly should not continue to enjoy the luxury of a monopoly on the desktop
6. Compile this list and post it online somewhere visible, or coodinate your effort with others with sites like BoycottNovell.com and the like, groups of people collecting this information may wish to present it to the appropriate people in American government, to show how strong the Microsoft monopoly remains today, and how little the DOJ has leaned on Microsoft vs. other countries.

If the DOJ will do nothing further to stop Microsoft's continued monopoly in the United States, we must do something.

Microsoft is a convicted monopoly and it should not continue to enjoy the luxury of preloaded systems and mysterious OEM deals

In addition, archive/save the following articles before they disappear:

Microsoft's Dirty OEM-Secret
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110

Microsoft Caught Out
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/11/15/124827/52

Microsoft Exec: OEMs Must Not Install Linux Besides Windows
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/4/27/214930/249

Secret deals MS uses to control PC companies
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/06/10/secret_deals_ms_uses/

Congress: Clear the Air and Stop Preloads
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/50179/

Microsoft Getting Paid for Patents in Linux?
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=07/02/11/1443211

Microsoft: Open source is too complex
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39380307,00.htm

Microsoft: "Drug-Dealing Methods"
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7654

When banks collateralized their mortgages into Asset Backed Securities, they usually lost the paperwork. And if they don't have a document trail proving that they own the house, they can't collect on Foreclosure Day.

Who Owns Your Home? has all the links.

This is how the author makes his living - everyone has to support themselves somehow, you know. If he gave his insights away for free, he wouldn't have nearly as much time to devote to his specialty as he does.

I wrote a diary on k5 a few years back which referenced Shadow Stats, which linked to an interview that links to a fuller interview of John Williams, the guy behind the Shadow Stats site.

My impression is that while Mr. Williams is quite right about the government mangling the statistics, he's wrong about the long-term implications (inflation forevermore). I like Mish of the Global Economic Analysis blog's take: he's been saying for some time that the end-game of current economic developments is massive deflation, as all the loans in the economy go bad one at a time, in a sort of cascading system failure. We're now seeing the deflation prediction come to pass - while Gas & food are skyrocketing, other assets (housing, etc) and prices are dropping fast, as homeowners and businesses struggle to find buyers at any price. This is what you'd expect if the amount of money available in the economy (read: available for the everyday working Joe to spend - the trust fund manager who made $1billion last year doesn't count) was decreasing.

For the record, I don't subscribe to Mr. Williams' newsletter - much too poor for that right now.

We zombies don't eat eyes, you ignorant clod!

We eat BRAINS!

Now get it straight, tastybrains.

1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers: the physical fitness cult.
3. the object of such devotion.
4. a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.
5. Sociology. a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.
6. a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.
7. the members of such a religion or sect.
8. any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific.

-adjective
9. of or pertaining to a cult.
10. of, for, or attracting a small group of devotees: a cult movie.

But our own freedom to speak carries such heavy limitations that to think we are better than the Chinese is laughable. You can be arrested for "hate speech." If you badmouth the wrong corporation (and face it, the corporations are the government here, the politicians only being figureheads who do the corporations' bidding) you will be slapped down with a S.L.A.P.P. suit. You won't go to jail, but you will be financially ruined.

2600.org wasn't allowed to link to an algorithm (DeCSS). The courts have held that you have no freedom of speech when writing in a computer language.

Our freedom of speech is illusory.

Religion? Again there's China, and Cuba. However, I don't think that Christianity or Hinduism are illegal in Saudia Arabia.

On the other hand, children have been suspended and even expelled from school for evangelizing. They're being punished both for their speech and their religion.

As to freedom of assembly, that's been gone for quite some time. You want to "petition the government for a redress of grievances" by protesting en masse in front of the statehouse? You're going to go to jail for not having a permit- in short, you must have permission to petition the government by peaceful assembly. Having to ask permission doesn't seem too free to me.

I didn't use a CC license though the one I drafted for myself is pretty similar. In particular I insisted on reserving print rights for myself. CC seems a bit more intent on making information free than reserving the possibility of future conventional publication.

I didn't use a CC license though the one I drafted for myself is pretty similar. In particular I insisted on reserving print rights for myself. CC seems a bit more intent on making information free than reserving the possibility of future conventional publication.

You might want to read today's Chicago Tribune. Even cops can get arrested. In Illinois, bugging without a warrant is a class IV felony whether you do it or a cop does it.

If you catch a cop bugging your house and the cop isn't arrested, you sue the city for megabucks. There isn't a city in the state that's going to let this slide.

If the feds bug you I'm not sure what would happen, but presumably you could sue under the Civil Rights Act.

I still wonder if I should have sued the cops for a civil rights violation when they searched my garage last Memorial Day (oh, the irony). It's journaled here at slashdot. Also see Liberty? What liberty?

I'll probably get modded down by the groupthink mods around here (hint: metamods: moderate any downmods as unfair)

You're given certain comments to metamoderate, but in the event I metamod whatever mod you get (so far they haven't modded it) will determine how I metamoderate. You simply asked a question so I can't see why anyone would downmod. It is an honest question afaict.

is this what the Linux user community needs?

No, but it may be what the Linux developer community needs. There could be some really cool code coming out of this that may benefit the user community in the future, but right now it's for developers only. If your hobby is hacking new code, this might be for you.

It's really a shame for F/OSS that, time and time again, there is such a huge duplication of effort and half-assed half-finished projects lying around in the junkyard of the Open Source cemetery.

Um, ok maybe I can see why you might get downmodded. I see no "junkyard" nor "cemetary", what Linux projects have died recently? A halfassed half-finished project deserves to die, but that's part of the open source process. And there's a "huge duplication of effort" having Windows, Apple, Solaris, etc, compete; or Ford, Chevy, Toyota, K.I.A. etc. as well. The difference is that if Ford invents something, Chevy's not going to have it in their cars unless they can come up with the same functionality without infringing Ford's patent. If some cool new thing comes of this, you may well see it un Red Hat or Mandriva shortly. That's one of open source's strengths.

I don't see "duplication of effort" as a weakness in either open source or closed.

As to junkyards, you might want to read a couple of articles I wrote a few years ago when I was at K5, Useful Dead Technologies and the sequel Good Riddance to Bad Tech.

Necessiy isn't the mother of invention, it's the father. Hard work is the mother. Do people need more than one mother?

I'll probably get modded down by the groupthink mods around here (hint: metamods: moderate any downmods as unfair)

You're given certain comments to metamoderate, but in the event I metamod whatever mod you get (so far they haven't modded it) will determine how I metamoderate. You simply asked a question so I can't see why anyone would downmod. It is an honest question afaict.

is this what the Linux user community needs?

No, but it may be what the Linux developer community needs. There could be some really cool code coming out of this that may benefit the user community in the future, but right now it's for developers only. If your hobby is hacking new code, this might be for you.

It's really a shame for F/OSS that, time and time again, there is such a huge duplication of effort and half-assed half-finished projects lying around in the junkyard of the Open Source cemetery.

Um, ok maybe I can see why you might get downmodded. I see no "junkyard" nor "cemetary", what Linux projects have died recently? A halfassed half-finished project deserves to die, but that's part of the open source process. And there's a "huge duplication of effort" having Windows, Apple, Solaris, etc, compete; or Ford, Chevy, Toyota, K.I.A. etc. as well. The difference is that if Ford invents something, Chevy's not going to have it in their cars unless they can come up with the same functionality without infringing Ford's patent. If some cool new thing comes of this, you may well see it un Red Hat or Mandriva shortly. That's one of open source's strengths.

I don't see "duplication of effort" as a weakness in either open source or closed.

As to junkyards, you might want to read a couple of articles I wrote a few years ago when I was at K5, Useful Dead Technologies and the sequel Good Riddance to Bad Tech.

Necessiy isn't the mother of invention, it's the father. Hard work is the mother. Do people need more than one mother?

I've found several interesting OLDER stories at Wikisource which I found quite enjoyable:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Sleeper_Awakes
and others by H.G.Wells:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:H._G._Wells

Similarly, you can read classic stuff from Jules Verne. Lots of short stories and such by various authors.

Their index of stuff doesn't seem very complete, but if you search for an author (google "wikisource $AUTHOR"), it seems to work very well.

Other good stories I've read recently:
Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow
http://craphound.com/littlebrother/Cory_Doctorow_-_Little_Brother.htm

The metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (may not be worksafe ;))
http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/
(I enjoyed this more than LB, though LB was very engaging as well.)

Most explosions don't kill because of the shock wave, but by shrapnel.

It would take a hell of a huge shockwave to kill a man. I doubt your run of the mill transducer would do the trick. Actually I doubt that current technology is advanced enough to create a transducer that would do the trick.

People have blown their hands of fishing with dynamite, and still lived to write books about it. I doubt you're going to electronically produce a shock wave greater than that produced by a stick of dynamite at less than a meter's distance.

In January 1976 I was driving an AMC Gremlin at 50mph and collided head on with a three quarter ton pickup truck doing 70 (details here). I was not wearing a seat belt. The dash was solid steel. My shoulder bent the dash, my face broke the windshield, but I not only survived the impact, but was examined and released from the hospital. You're going to have a very hard time producing a SOUND that can hit that hard.

Find a freedom that is PRESENTLY being violated in the US to bitch about. It's not hard to do.

Indeed. I've done it here and I did it back when I posted at K5*. But the fact remains that even though the politicians and cops and rich people would dearly love to get rid of that pesky Constitution (and at times have succeeded), we are no match for Syria when it comes to abusing human rights.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/15/71552/7795

analysis of th win2000 source code

Most of the cd's I own are merely format change versions of prior albums I owned

Sometimes folks remark how good my car stereo sounds, and invariably it's a CD that I made from an LP. I wrote a how-to a few years ago. The secret to a good sounding CD is finding a damned good turntable.

My ex-wife (she and her family are mentioned in the link) was a serial adultress. Where do you get the assertion that I was responsible in any way for my wife's adultery?

Your post may come back to haunt you some day.

Gentlemen and Gentleladies, please refute it here (2003), here (Mar 2007), or here (Dec 2007), or or not waste your time at all.

Except Enders Game was actually good literature.

You're kidding, right? "Ender's Game" is neither literature, nor good.

Do yourself a favour and read this.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2005/5/28/193926/689

Considering that Card may not have even written the Ender books himself, I'm not surprised that he continues to advocate using other people's ideas.

That being interesting and all, the Potter encyclopedia clearly isn't a clear-cut case of plagiarism because Rowling gets all the credit for invention. This sort of thing happens all the time, under the "unauthorized" banner. Asshat or not, Card has a point.

P.S. Ender and Hitler essay was recently put online

KOSTELANETZ - What happened in the piece where you burned a violin?

YOUNG - That was in a piece by Richard Maxfield performed at the Y.M.H.A. in New York. Even though it was Richard's piece, he gave me free rein, as he did in all his pieces; and this one of the general conditions I often asked for my performance of the works of other composers and artists during that period. The piece was his Concert Suite from Dromenon, I believe. It involved a small orchestra, most of whom had far more rigid instructions than I did. I had my violin and my music stand, and I had carefully stuffed the violin with matches and lighter fluid ahead of time. I didn't tell anybody but Richard, who I thought should know, because I felt certain that they would not allow me to do it. Fortunately, they did not stop the performance; the instruments were playing, while the violin went blazing away.

A quick giggle for "or the Gnu Protective License" barfed up the following:

http://www.news.com/5208-1030_3-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=2246&messageID=11919&start=-1
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=389856&cid=21705136
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=67877&no_d2=1&cid=6220788
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=159323&cid=13343214
http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2003/2/13/8422/16656/11#11

I think the biggest thing keeping this troll from being truly informative is the lack of understanding of the licence, and the deliberate mis-statement of its effects. Its fictitious and incorrect pronouncements virtually guarentee that nobody with even rudimentary analytical skills will believe it. After my experience with these beliefs, I won't be recommending them any of my associates. I may reconsider if it switches to something a little more believable, like the HIV-protective benefits of nailing your head to the floor. Until then its attempts to deliberately distort the facts about what you can and cannot do with in-house software that's not for external distribution shall continue to attract such a flurry of indignant responses that it's easy to believe that Mother Henrietta Hickey's day job is posting anti-GPL FUD.

Thank you for your time.

What I find hilarious is the very same malware troll was in the SCO thread, where it would have been an ontopic troll.

It was modded offtopic rather than "troll". At least this time the mods got it right, any link to malware should be modded "troll".

I really should start going to the Biters Anonymous meetings again, I've been responding to the troll posts, at least to the extent of saying DON'T CLICK THAT LINK. But damn, it's like giving up cigarettes.

-mcgrew

The end result of exposing their rootkit fiasco was absolutely nothing.

Still think you're so smart Mister sm62704, if that is your real name?

Hey, I like that, it made me laugh. My original four digit /.uid was 'mcgrew', which is my name. Changed email addresses and a lost password ruined that. That's also the one I used at k5as well. My domain, mcgrew.info, is down at the moment. My first name is mentioned in the latest diary (in which getting laid ruined my weekend).

sm are my initials, 62704 was my zip code when I re-upped at /.. If you can talk mister taco into giving me my name back I'll appreciate it.

I think the really big news will be that we find out just how frakking evil microsoft is, or isn't.
Please, take a moment to think about Vista, and how reliable, quick, stable and trouble free it has proven to be. I'll wait.

dum-de-dum.

do-waaa. dum-de.

OK, back from throwing up? sorry, I'm a jerk. OK, now think of the position Microsoft is in; there are millions of XP users out there, and more every time most people with Vista manage to get hold of a XP license (as with everything, there are exceptions. I understand Vista works better than XP on Tablet PC's. And if you have one of those experimental Cray Quantum Core(tm) massively parallel systems, Vista runs fine).
Lets see, what could they do to get people to stop using XP, and START using those Vista licenses they have been giving away to make it look like they have been actually selling it?
They could maybe... leak the source code? nah. been done.
They could make a deal with game developers so that new games would only run on Vista. Hmmm. Might work.
Regardless, if they are Evil, they will throw something in the service pack which makes Vista more attractive or the lesser evil.

You should see the flak I get for daring to suggest that the US is a police state (hint: if you have a "secret police" it's a police state whether you call them "plainclothesmen", "undercover agents", "Gestapo", "SS", or "a rose by any other name") or that you lost your Constitutional rights long ago.

Maybe not so ironically a lot of the flak I get is slashdot comments by police officers who vainly try to defend their bosses' illegal orders to trash my rights, and their blindly following thoise illegal orders. Nobody polices the police.

Ironically, the parent post seems to have been ripped from the diary of "Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr" on Kuro5hin, from more than 4 years ago.

See original on Kuro5hin

You have no fourth amendment rights while in your car either. Or as I found out on the day we pay tribute to the brave men an women who died in defense of our Constitutional rights, The cops will search your garage without a warrant too.

I wrote a piece about this a few years ago, it seems things are only getting worse.

-mcgrew

One was offensive, one defensive. The anti-sweden troll was a troll, trolling for bites (and he got one) while the anti-us comment was a bite.

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/10/2/103735/275