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Discreditable- Harmful to one's reputation; blameworthy

Check out the defination of humor and then go check out sarcasm

Might clear up the confusion..

Check out the defination of humor and then go check out sarcasm

Might clear up the confusion..

Extortion of money or something else of value from a person by the threat of exposing a criminal act or discreditable information.

It gives a figure of 44% creationist beliefs in the US. I can't find results for Australia, but there is no way we have that level of ignorance here. People are generally well educated here, and the average person would laugh at anyone professing belief in Creationism.

Really? You would *laugh* at someone who disagrees with you? Then I take it you're not part of the "generally well educated" population of which you speak?

I'm an athiest, but I know plenty of smart, well rounded Catholics, Methodists, Mormons, etc. They believe in creation, I don't. It would never occur to me to laugh at them about it, that's called tolerance

BTW, your post is predicated on a crappy media poll and a load of sweeping generalizations. If you're going play the jingo card, come prepared.

Carrying out military attacks on unarmed and unwarned civilian populations is the very definition of cowardice

Look up 'cowardice' in the dictionary. The one I looked in defines it as:
1. Ignoble fear in the face of danger or pain. 2. Want of courage to face danger; extreme timidity; pusillanimity; base fear of danger or hurt; lack of spirit. 3. The trait of lacking courage.

I don't see how you can believe that the 9/11 terrorrists showed 'extreme timidity', or 'fear of danger or hurt', or especially 'lack of spirit.'
Their acts were terrible, wrong, evil, sinful, etc. But they did not demonstrate cowardice. I will not mutilate the meaning of a word just to lob an insult no matter how nasty I think the recipient is.

Sorry I missed most of the discussion, but I had to get in my 2 cents.

No, you're not. Is your intent to get his gun because you'd like to have it and keep it? That's not theft, that's an attempt to reduce your personal danger. Self-defense, actually.

Actually, yes you are stealing. It's a very justifiable theft, but you are still taking someone else's property without their permission. It is also an act of self-defense.

You see, the thing is that you have rights, and he has rights. Sometimes those rights collide. He has a right to his property, but you have a right to personal safety. In this case society has deemed that your rights in the matter are more inportant than his, and you will not be prosecuted for violating his rights.
This does not mean that your violation of his rights did not occur, it means society has decided that it is forgivable.


Protection racket? Explain how you make *that* leap. Who are they "protecting"?

They are "protecting" the artists, of course.

No, you're not. Is your intent to get his gun because you'd like to have it and keep it? That's not theft, that's an attempt to reduce your personal danger. Self-defense, actually.

Actually, yes you are stealing. It's a very justifiable theft, but you are still taking someone else's property without their permission. It is also an act of self-defense.

You see, the thing is that you have rights, and he has rights. Sometimes those rights collide. He has a right to his property, but you have a right to personal safety. In this case society has deemed that your rights in the matter are more inportant than his, and you will not be prosecuted for violating his rights.
This does not mean that your violation of his rights did not occur, it means society has decided that it is forgivable.


Protection racket? Explain how you make *that* leap. Who are they "protecting"?

They are "protecting" the artists, of course.

If it were communism, then the entire economy would be controlled by a single entity without even the illusion of competition. Fascism is significantly more dangerous, because its economic policies are driven by a central government which controls industry through legislation. Competition still exists, in theory, but the government gets to decide who competes and who doesn't. Sound familiar?

If it were communism, then the entire economy would be controlled by a single entity without even the illusion of competition. Fascism is significantly more dangerous, because its economic policies are driven by a central government which controls industry through legislation. Competition still exists, in theory, but the government gets to decide who competes and who doesn't. Sound familiar?

That sentence no verb!
"built"
verb:
he built
she built...

For that kind of money, why isn't the Army creating their OWN Linux distro? They could've started with the NSA's security-enhanced Linux and customized it from there. A half-billion dollars ought to be enough to build an operating system that would make OS X look like DOS. (Actually, I imagine it would cost much less to create their own distro -- perhaps only 10% of the Microsoft deal.)

What's more, the Army would have total access to the code, they could make changes as needed, and they'd never have to spend another dime on OS licenses.

I can't see any way that this deal makes sense. What a waste. Until I hear better, I'm considering this theft by cronyism.

If you want the EFF to buy off a congressman, send them a $20 check

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a charity. Charities do not make political campaign contributions. Political action committees (PACs) are not charities and can and do give money to candidates. Does there exist a PAC in the United States that focuses on the same issues that EFF follows?

If I go to a public library and xerox every damn last page of a book that I don't feel like buying, am I stealing? I say, damn right I am. You'd say hell no. That's the disagreement right there, I think. And I think we're both stubborn enough that this discussion isn't going to change either of our views.

I have no problem with definitions, and I even know that definitions are found in a dictionary, not a thesaurus: argument (see #2a)

Um. Can you really not tell the difference between burning a copy of a CD and shoplifting a copy from a store?

Let's look at it this way: You have a friend that has the new Radiohead CD and you goto to his/her house and say "Yo, I'm keeping this CD."
What do you think your friend would say? Maybe he/she would say "Well, I can make you a copy, but I want that CD"
Now you say to your friend "there is no difference" and walk out.
What say your friend now?

If you really lack the mental capacity to distiguish between physically removing an object from someones possestion and making a copy of that object so that you both have one, I really don't have much more to say. I guess that is just a handicap you will have to live with.

Now to repond to your first, and less important, statement. It seems you've got a real problem with definitions. But since synonyms rarely have the exact same definitions, we will consult a thesaurus ok?

Synonyms for 'argument'
Synonyms for 'point'

Your previous post was indeed full of logical errors, kinda of like how all of my posts are full of grammatical and spelling errors. However, I now give you the chance to correct yourself and retract in part, or in it's entirety, your previous post.

Um. Can you really not tell the difference between burning a copy of a CD and shoplifting a copy from a store?

Let's look at it this way: You have a friend that has the new Radiohead CD and you goto to his/her house and say "Yo, I'm keeping this CD."
What do you think your friend would say? Maybe he/she would say "Well, I can make you a copy, but I want that CD"
Now you say to your friend "there is no difference" and walk out.
What say your friend now?

If you really lack the mental capacity to distiguish between physically removing an object from someones possestion and making a copy of that object so that you both have one, I really don't have much more to say. I guess that is just a handicap you will have to live with.

Now to repond to your first, and less important, statement. It seems you've got a real problem with definitions. But since synonyms rarely have the exact same definitions, we will consult a thesaurus ok?

Synonyms for 'argument'
Synonyms for 'point'

Your previous post was indeed full of logical errors, kinda of like how all of my posts are full of grammatical and spelling errors. However, I now give you the chance to correct yourself and retract in part, or in it's entirety, your previous post.

1. Whether your use is commercial, non-profit, or educational.
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. How much of the work did you use.
4. Your use's effect on the market for the copyrighted work.

1. Sure, you're non-profit, but this is the only test you'll pass.
2. The work you're using is for-profit, this actually works against you since presumption protects the creators rights especially since you're taking food off their table (yes, that intentionally inflammatory.)
3. Well, you're pretty much using the entire work, otherwise it isn't much of a backup is it? Fair use is really intended to protect public commentary on a work, not giving the work away.
4. Hrm...you're giving away the work? That would reduce the market for the work (since someone else doesn't need to go out and buy it.) That alone slam dunks your fair use argument. (Yes, I realize that giving a sample away would increase awareness of the creator, but that's a decision for the creator to make, not Joe Filesharer.)

• If you think the "sell, lease, or assign" language saves your ass, you might want to look here. Especially the fifth definition, "Law. To transfer (property, rights, or interests) from one to another." Um, you're screwed there too.
• No definition of "distributor" implies any more of a relationship besides that the distributor distrubes and the distributee recieves.

Ultimately, it does come down to the viability of the RIAA argument. Unfortunately for the file sharers, against giving away someone else's property (even if it is evil intellectual property) it is pretty easy to build a viable argument.

A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.

The Many Forms of Godwin's Law "When someboy on UseNet brings up Hitler
or the Nazi's the thread has been going on too long." - Richard Sexton

I'm not sure how that fits with your statemnt, since I'm not sure what you mean by handled.

Sure, I use it and you use it. When my mother uses it, I will accept that it's popular. Until then, it's popular only in a very narrow sense, e.g. "Originating among the people".

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=unfunny

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=joke

Use the word "Wanker" in their sig.

WANKERS stands for: Wankers are nerdy kiddies employing rancid scripts?

Hmmm, I'm not a phish fan, but lets think about this for a second.

Phish doesn't want other people making money on their free music. Sounds a little like GPL doesn't it. Are you Anti-GPL? Its a serious question, I'm just curious because in the world of file swapping it is real easy to do this:

1) Set up a phish website with a banner add and copy all of phish's free music to the site for download.
2) Get a hit on the banner add every time soneone comes to your site.
3) profit!

Phish wants its free music free.

As for free speech, defamatory speech amounts to slander or libel, which is not protected under the first amendment. Illegal speech and actionable content come under the same header. Not all speech is protected, and basically what phish is saying is in order to offer this content you can't have any speech which is not protected by the first amendment, such as slander or libel (and quite possibly speech made "illegal" by the DMCA, but thats the DMCAs fault). You aren't losing any rights because you didn't have those rights in the first place. Its a pretty simple legal clause to protect Phish from "endorsing" such speech.

As for offensive, this is a bit broad, but minors can download these songs, and Phish doesn't want to endorse excessive swearing, or even worse, racial or ethnic slurs.

So all in all, it is my opinion that your reaction to their EULA is an over-reaction and Phish is covering their ass by simply saying "We don't ensorse your sites if they do things which are illegal or do things which parents might object to, or are trying to make money off of our free music." Simple as that.

"The USPO become a US legal work creation scheme"

What does the Post office have to do with it?

Side topic: those 10ths of cents? They are called "mills". That's some good nerd trivia there.

To argue that speed alone is a problem is to be blind to reason.

That's bordering on the silliest single statement I've ever heard. Not only that, but all your examples are absurd.

Going Mach II in a concord? Sure, it's safe. Try going Mach V, and let me know what happens. It's the same for cars. There are safe speeds, and there are unsafe speeds.

I rolled my Jeep once, in a hailstorm, doing twenty miles per hour. I had to fix a dent in the fender, and get it off its side, but I wasn't even sore. I knew someone who rolled their car probably doing 80mph+. Please note the past tense of the verb, there.

Speed alone is a problem, period. At night, especially - if you're going fast enough that your speed will allow you to travel the illumination distance of your headlights during your reaction time, you're a pancake waiting to happen. Nothing in the world but blind luck can save you. During the day, it's the same around every bend, and over every rise. If you've done it this long, it's because you're lucky, not super-slick.

Do you not consider it dangerous to be alive through luck alone? A deer in the road, a truck stopped around a bend, and maybe, if you're very lucky, you'll be living long enough to spend the rest of your life drinking dinner through a straw. Me personally, *I* consider that dangerous. As for the rest of the world?

Dangerous:

1) Involving or filled with danger; perilous.
2) Being able or likely to do harm.

Anything else?

I completely agree with that statement, and the rationale behind it. If you go back and read what I originally wrote (the first paragraph), I was saying that companies who need computers to survive need to pay for that support. I also said that I, personally, don't need to pay for that support. I said that because I have the option of building white-box PCs, for me -- personally, then I can save money and get a lot more computer than if I paid Apple or Dell.

If I got a new life and became a person that set up office computing environments, I'd demand that they buy from a vendor who had support built into the cost of the hardware. That would, aside from being a very good idea, allow me to set up more offices and therefore make more money.

So enjoy the white box on your desk. Because you're going to be on unemployment soon.

Use white box hardware and go out of business? Are you saying that if I had an Apple on my desk I'd be able to keep my job? Your syllogism is serisouly flawed.

I work at a university, in the CS department. We have the most byzantine IT setup you could imagine. We not only have an IT staff, our "customers" -- the students and professors -- are an IT staff. And yes, we have a lot of Dells, and they have support contracts. We have Apples, too. And Sparcs. They have vendor support. And we have a lot of other frankenstein hardware laying around, some of which made it into a machine I use. So because it's not an Apple I'll be losing my job?

-B

Once the market cleans out the Boom chaff, look for more interesting apps to come out of the consolidation. This is a market issue, not a technology issue.

No it won't! That's a non sequitor. Using your logic, the consolidation in the 1920s and 1930s of the 20 or so automobile manufacturors and their suppliers into 3 uber-companies (Chrysler, Ford and GM) made the quality and innovativeness of the cars go up!? By the 1950s, the Big 3 had begun their long, slow, painful ride into mediocrity.

An active free-market in fungible goods with lots of healthy competition is what improves things. Not an oligopoly.

This is the big reason proprietary software is so afraid of OSS. With OSS and the GPL, all software offerings become fungible. You don't like your MRP package? If it's based on an open source project, and the package is popular enough that their competitors created "conversion kits", you can just swap it out. Don't like your e-mail server? If its using a standards-based protocol, you can swap out the server or clients as you see fit.

Blaming the woes of Business Software on too much competition is not only without basis, it flies in the face of the experience of 200+ years of free market capitalism.

"funnily" WTF? You make an informative post, but destroy it by making up words. WTF? No, really, did you think that "funnily" is a word? Please tell me you are not that stupid.

funniÂly adv.

If you insist on using silly phrases like that, the least you could do is bother to spell them properly.

So true. Techies, especially those rabid enough to make it to these positions, are the most intelligent, confrontational, egomaniacal humans on the planet. Just look at Slashdot. Of course, none of us can spell, but that doesn't stop us from insulting and arguing with each other.

One of the VP's of HP said once that his employment there was dependent upon their acknowledgement that he did not work well with others. It's a part of the culture.

And, fwiw, atypical means not typical.

It's foreword, not forward.

It's foreword, not forward.

You understand it incorrectly. The orient/orientate distinction has nothing to do with direct or indirect objects. They are essentially synonymous -- the distinction is an issue of usage.

"Orientate" is typically used more often when speaking of physical orientation. "Orient" would probably have been more appropriate for the conceptual orientation that is being discussed in this case. Either is acceptable, though.

You understand it incorrectly. The orient/orientate distinction has nothing to do with direct or indirect objects. They are essentially synonymous -- the distinction is an issue of usage.

"Orientate" is typically used more often when speaking of physical orientation. "Orient" would probably have been more appropriate for the conceptual orientation that is being discussed in this case. Either is acceptable, though.

Yes, it is.

Cool! So if IBM were produce pamphlets hailing lawyers as the saviours of the known universe, demanding revenue to form the new order from ALL computer users and stick a picture of our fuher looking a little like Darl McBride.... That would be mockery? Hey great resource you linked too. Even has a description of you!

Any picture's of SCO employees actually holding those cards? I'm sure the RIAA would be interested in people who download all their music for free. I also suggest the police investigate SCO's PUBLIC ADMISSION OF SOFTWARE PIRACY!

No pictures, but there's more information available here.

Take a look at what conservative really means. You'll see how Robert Anton Wilson has it exactly right. What I don't understand is how the current bunch of radical Republicans get off calling themselves conservative.

For more fun, look up liberal. It's nothing like the right wing talk show people say it is. Funny though, it's like the people I know who consider themselves liberal. Sorry about the rant.

--
Anonymous only to keep the signal to noise level for this article in check. If you really hate me, mod one of my other posts down. It wouldn't be the first revenge mod, or the last.

nunononoonoooo.... too uninspired...

it should be called 'Galapogos'. it makes sense because it was derived from darwin (evolved from darwin?) and has plenty of neato animals that could be used for a mascot. plus it has an interesting sounding name... (hopefully nobody else is using the name for a project or competing company/trademark)

From dictionary.com:

1. The crime of forcing another person to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse.
2. The act of seizing and carrying off by force; abduction.
3. Abusive or improper treatment; violation: a rape of justice.

from a sexual assault website:
You are the one needing a refresher course.

Sounds like you're the one who needs to get a clue. Common, you know that words can have multiple meanings and that a website about assault is likely to have only one of them.

steal : To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
(I am not sure of the license of 4.2BSD, so if I am wrong, please correct me, but) I suppose ESR is against violation of a license - whether or not he believes in it's morality. So that does make it stolen.

1. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
2. The study of these activities.
3. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.

> Non-Profit Business. RTFA, Ass

Key word is business, not profit or non-profit

He is using it as a business, so its comercial.

commercial
1.
1. Of or relating to commerce: a commercial loan; a commercial attaché.
2. Engaged in commerce: a commercial trucker.
3. Involved in work that is intended for the mass market: a commercial artist.
2. Of, relating to, or being goods, often unrefined, produced and distributed in large quantities for use by industry.
3. Having profit as a chief aim: a commercial book, not a scholarly tome.
4. Sponsored by an advertiser or supported by advertising: commercial television.

Sounds like he fits the definition to me.

I believe in most human languages, that would be considered humor..

MSNBotulism.

But glow in the dark fish?

Not to nitpick, but these fish don't glow in the dark (photoluminescent), they glow under ultraviolet light (fluorescent).

Is that really worth the possibility that the fish will escape and reek havoc in the ecosystem?

Check out the article, the company says that more than 90 percent have been sterlized, but I'm sure really concerned about protecting their product, rather than the environment. As to whether or not the zebra fish constitute a ecological threat like snakeheads, check out this page - looks like they prefer warmer water.

But glow in the dark fish?

Not to nitpick, but these fish don't glow in the dark (photoluminescent), they glow under ultraviolet light (fluorescent).

Is that really worth the possibility that the fish will escape and reek havoc in the ecosystem?

Check out the article, the company says that more than 90 percent have been sterlized, but I'm sure really concerned about protecting their product, rather than the environment. As to whether or not the zebra fish constitute a ecological threat like snakeheads, check out this page - looks like they prefer warmer water.

With graphics data transfers taking place on another "bus" (technically, AGP is not a bus, since it only supports one device), the previously saturated PCI bus was freed up for use with other devices.

Well let's see what the dictionary has to say...

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition: "Computer Science. A parallel circuit that connects the major components of a computer, allowing the transfer of electric impulses from one connected component to any other."

It can ALSO mean a set of conductors connecting several components, but that's not what bus means. Hypertransport is a bus, even though it's a point to point link.