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OMG that was witty, hahaha.

Funny, yes. But how exactly does that demonstrate wit?

Turns out we're both wrong.

despair

See, this is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about! Neither of us got this right the first time. Its a simple word! I am despairing for the future of humanity even more, now.

I give up!

Check out Dictionary.com - they have a much better reference list (plus, they also search m-w).

Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service: âoeMonopoly frequently... arises from government support or from collusive agreements among individualsâ (Milton Friedman)

The exclusive power, or privilege of selling a commodity; the exclusive power, right, or privilege of dealing in some article, or of trading in some market; sole command of the traffic in anything, however obtained; as, the proprietor of a patented article is given a monopoly of its sale for a limited time; chartered trading companies have sometimes had a monopoly of trade with remote regions; a combination of traders may get a monopoly of a particular product.

-T

Dude.. you've paid your tax/levy/tith/suppository/whatever to the ARIA/MPAA.

Should they 'catch' you downloading and drag you to court, you just need to display your receipts with the 'TAX: $0.21' and say "I've paid them!".

Bing! This is called pre-paid. You might like to point out while you are there that there are more uses to blank CDRs than to infringe copyrights.

One more point: If they are stupid enough to accuse you of 'piracy' then get your lawyer to have the charge dropped - try looking up the definition of 'piracy' sometime.

I am also a published musician with a copyright registered in the US Copyright Office, and I find your comments regarding this situation as irreprehensible and expect much more from an elected representative of the people.

• irreprehensible
• reprehensible

I am also a published musician with a copyright registered in the US Copyright Office, and I find your comments regarding this situation as irreprehensible and expect much more from an elected representative of the people.

• irreprehensible
• reprehensible

• I speak from experience, Its not a matter of opinion.

...according to Google and dictionary.reference.com, means hear ye.

Intellectual property rights are not "moral questions," but issues of policy. Though Hatch and his ilk are always claiming the so-called "moral" high ground, all he really is is a politician. The decisions we make about how far to extend IP rights and remedies is political (and, I suppose, economic), and has nothing to do with morality.

Intellectual property rights are not "moral questions," but issues of policy. Though Hatch and his ilk are always claiming the so-called "moral" high ground, all he really is is a politician. The decisions we make about how far to extend IP rights and remedies is political (and, I suppose, economic), and has nothing to do with morality.

And to think that this is all coming from a man whose surname is synonymous to 'spitball.' (Reference: dictionary.com) --Revvy

yeah, I'm really scared of the RIAA and their hackers/admins.
fuckers can't even keep a website up, let alone take my computer down.
and his bits about destroying computers...hmm, maybe the code running on it, but the computer? Pardon me, for being technical, but a computer is what we call the hardware :
computer
NOT the operating system and data on it.
You could probably fuck my hard drive to hell and back, if you :
1) root my box ( ooh, baby! )
2) have some code that changes the kernel's I/O patterns or drive behavior to a constant random seek
3) and catch me when I'm on vacation ( yeah fucking right )
other than that, computer's don't have magic self-destruct circuits. if anyone else can think of a way that they could pull this off, I'd love to hear it.
So the most the RIAA could pull would be to crack my box ( Linux + BSDs, firewalled, very few services ) and piss me off for a few hours ( tape backups of important data ).
Then I would join the others who are returning the favor.
So, Mr. Hatch, stick it and your campaign bribery, I mean, funding, up your ass, if there's any room left after your head.
#endRant

Autarchy

Why cant anyone countersue for causing damage to business with unsubstantiated rumours like in Europe?

Next you'll be asking for the "right to reply" that those commie-pinko-homos in Europe are pushing for.

Note for moderators, the above is called satire

Clink the link and educate yourselves.

This disturbing trend of half of things being larger than the median size is occuring everywhere in nature. It's spreading like a plague from the field of mathematics into our everyday lives.

In fact, I recently discovered that it's also happening in the dictionary.

This must be stopped before it's too late!

Definition of flight from dictionary.com

1. The motion of an object in or through a medium, especially through the earth's atmosphere or through space. 2. An instance of such motion. 3. The distance covered in such motion.

Even NASA calls it space flight:

1. Goddard Space Flight Center
2. Marshall space Flight Center
3. NASA Office of Space Flight

what makes this thing a 'robot' as opposed to say... just a big fscking tool?

There are several answers to that, which largely depend on your definition of robot, so take your pick.

The first answer is that there is no difference between a robot (American Heritage, definition #2) and a complicated tool.

The second, more complete answer is that a robot (WordNet definition from above link) is just an automatic mechanism. If you go to the AquaJet site (They're the hydrodemolitions company in question.) and poke around, or even just read the summary linked in the story, you'll see that the operator tells the robot where to go, how much concrete to remove, and how smooth to leave it, and the robot then decides (and executes) the proper number, speed and angle of sweeps with the proper pressure and oscillation. It doesn't mention what the second operator is for, but I suspect he's either back at the custom trailer mmaking sure the water lines feed out, or driving the reclamation truck behind the robot to suck up the water.

The third answer, for American Heritage definition #1, meaning a robot is a human-like machine, can be seen here, in the picture of the second model, which is equipped with a vaguely humanoid 'robot arm' that can move the entire assembly up and down and back and forth.

The final answer (Well, the final one I'll be giving tonight) is that using the final definition of 'robot' on the dictionary.com page above ("A mechanical device for performing a task which might otherwise be done by a human, e.g. spraying paint on cars."), this is still a robot. Of course, that's because you could, if you really wanted to, have a machine where a person with a joystick and a set of throttles manually moved and controlled the jet. But, would you really want to?

theft

\Theft\, n. [OE. thefte, AS. [thorn]i['e]f[eth]e, [thorn][=y]f[eth]e, [thorn]e['o]f[eth]e. See Thief.] 1. (Law) The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same; larceny.

Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief. See Larceny, and the Note under Robbery.

"Of course they don't have the First Amendment. They don't have the Declaration of Independance or the Proclamation of Emancipation, either; the First Amendment is part of the American constitution."

Your new word for today is "analogy". Your homework assignment is to learn its definition and compose five sentences using the word.

"This intentionally emotion-provoking phrase intends to say "they don't have freedom of speech","

IMO (I'm not the original poster), he meant that Europeans don't have "hard" freedom of speech. The US is more or less unique with the wording of its constitution. Most national documents (including and especially western European countries) state that its people have "freedom of speech" but don't say much more than those magic three words, leaving the government to figure out just what they mean (yes, I know I'm cynical, but...). In the US, "Congress shall make no law." If this law were passed in the US verbatim, it would be smacked down by the courts in about three seconds flat (and heads would probably roll during the next election year). Most European democracies have few fundamental laws that restrict their legislatures quite this "severely," so it's more than fair to say that they don't have a "First Amendment."

"This reads like a third-grader's "your momma's so fat" joke; it seems like it's just there to try to make Europe seem bad, without any justifying context."

Metaphor time!

"Tim's momma's so fat, etc etc... And now, according to national law, I must inform you that Tim has presented a signed affidavit from a doctor that his mother is not clinically 'obese.'"

Just imagine the chaos at your average soccer game!

"With the implication that in pursuit of respect for Free Speech,"

"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech."

"Respect For Small Government,"

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectivley, or to the People."

"the states aren't any better at any of this than their peers in democracy."

If anything, I'd argue that we've at least done a better job of putting these ideals into words and putting them in our fundamental laws.

"College kids don't get their life-savings yanked for producing search engines in free-speech respecting nations."

I'll get flamed for doing this, but he was free to say "no" to the settlement offer.

"why'd you have to ruin it by trying to make America the moral of the story?"

Because he know how much of a resposne it would incite. Duh!

It's the right word, spelled the right way, look it up.
Yea, yea, and it should be HTML, not HMTL.

As for Microsoft incorporating Bayesian filtering in OE (or any other client): POPFile and others are free (as in beer and speech,) and filtering after downloading doesn't speed up the crawl email takes across my slow connection.

enÂquirÂy
n. pl. enÂquirÂies
Variant of inquiry.

enÂquirÂy
n. pl. enÂquirÂies
Variant of inquiry.

irony

So what the hell does that have to do with supporting supposedly more difficult to support devices like USB? (Okay, yes, it's harder to support by far, because you can't just do IN and OUT. But as others have said, you can "steal" code from BSD.)

mandation (is that even a word?)

mandate

Does that include ridiculing the poster for using words they don't understand? Did you mean trove?

I never argued that any of this had to do with truth.

It's still at the stage of logical consistency

which atheism fails to satisfy just as certainly as theism does

I brought up Heisenberg precisedly [sic] to point out that it may well be beyond our abilities to explain everything rationally.

we are still pretty stupid about the answers to big questions

If religion has made a mistake, it is in saying it knows the answers without evidence. In that way, atheism is a religion.

Throughput seems ingenious. One of the major challenges for chip designers is what's called memory latency. That's when a semiconductor sits idly while awaiting bits from a computer's memory needed to complete a given task. "We decided to stop fighting memory latency and learn how to live with it," says David Yen, the executive VP in charge of Sun's microprocessor division. As Yen describes it, a throughput chip constantly initiates new tasks, so it never sits idle. For example, while it awaits the information needed to complete a complex database search, it might launch a second and maybe a third and a fourth database query. Juggling tasks simultaneously rather than serially is known as multithreading, and Sun execs contend it's possible on systems running its machines but not on Wintel or Lintel boxes.

Sorry, but that's not quite what multithreading is. That's multitasking, actually, unless you are devoting one processor to the job, and then you just might be doing multiprocessing - actually, you are probably doing the first two at all times; add in the last one if you have a machine with multiple processors which are not used strictly for running individual tasks.

Moreover, Intel already offers a simplified version of throughput, dubbed hyperthreading. Its chips can process two distinct tasks simultaneously by tricking the operating system into thinking it's working with two processors rather than one.

So what it sounds like here is that Sun is trying to make a processor which can maintain multiple contexts at once. I'm not at all familiar with the SPARC or UltraSPARC architectures but on intel that means maintaining the instruction pointer and offset, the address pointers and offsets, and the state of the flags register. I would assume that one has similar registers on any processor, though those with a flat memory model rather than segmented (hello, 64 bit!) will have less registers to mess with, meaning that context switches will be less expensive. Say, I wonder if x86-64 sticks the segment and offset in different portions of a 64 bit address register (high and low, ala x86 registers) to reduce the cost of swapping them out in a 64 bit aware OS? That would be slick.

Sun also plans to insert multiple CPUs on a single chip; Duh. Thanks, Sun. When you find out how to make it reasonably priced, let us know. It would be a huge advantage if you combined it with the "throughput" (let us call it multiple-context since others are doing it already) technology somehow, though that seems like a harder problem than you might think. It would be most beneficial to be able to tie any CPU to any context, and to have more contexts than CPUs, for obvious reasons. This would remove most of the overhead of context switching (it might effectively remove all of it on systems whose fine-granularity tasks number less than the number of contexts in the CPU) and as such be a huge win.

The idea behind Project Orion is to fold into Solaris a long list of products that Sun now sells separately, such as software that allows a customer to offer instant messaging or to create an easy-to-manage portal. Unlike Microsoft Windows, which includes any number of bundled applications (a browser, a media player, games), Orion allows Solaris users to replace Sun's offering with a competitor's at the click of a button.

So Sun is planning to give up the last advantage they have (given that the UltraSparc III is looking painfully dated now) and start bringing in other people's software? This is something that Microsoft can't do, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing. Obviously it's what we the FOSS community want until Linux is able to run on Sun's big iron at least as well as S

Throughput seems ingenious. One of the major challenges for chip designers is what's called memory latency. That's when a semiconductor sits idly while awaiting bits from a computer's memory needed to complete a given task. "We decided to stop fighting memory latency and learn how to live with it," says David Yen, the executive VP in charge of Sun's microprocessor division. As Yen describes it, a throughput chip constantly initiates new tasks, so it never sits idle. For example, while it awaits the information needed to complete a complex database search, it might launch a second and maybe a third and a fourth database query. Juggling tasks simultaneously rather than serially is known as multithreading, and Sun execs contend it's possible on systems running its machines but not on Wintel or Lintel boxes.

Sorry, but that's not quite what multithreading is. That's multitasking, actually, unless you are devoting one processor to the job, and then you just might be doing multiprocessing - actually, you are probably doing the first two at all times; add in the last one if you have a machine with multiple processors which are not used strictly for running individual tasks.

Moreover, Intel already offers a simplified version of throughput, dubbed hyperthreading. Its chips can process two distinct tasks simultaneously by tricking the operating system into thinking it's working with two processors rather than one.

So what it sounds like here is that Sun is trying to make a processor which can maintain multiple contexts at once. I'm not at all familiar with the SPARC or UltraSPARC architectures but on intel that means maintaining the instruction pointer and offset, the address pointers and offsets, and the state of the flags register. I would assume that one has similar registers on any processor, though those with a flat memory model rather than segmented (hello, 64 bit!) will have less registers to mess with, meaning that context switches will be less expensive. Say, I wonder if x86-64 sticks the segment and offset in different portions of a 64 bit address register (high and low, ala x86 registers) to reduce the cost of swapping them out in a 64 bit aware OS? That would be slick.

Sun also plans to insert multiple CPUs on a single chip; Duh. Thanks, Sun. When you find out how to make it reasonably priced, let us know. It would be a huge advantage if you combined it with the "throughput" (let us call it multiple-context since others are doing it already) technology somehow, though that seems like a harder problem than you might think. It would be most beneficial to be able to tie any CPU to any context, and to have more contexts than CPUs, for obvious reasons. This would remove most of the overhead of context switching (it might effectively remove all of it on systems whose fine-granularity tasks number less than the number of contexts in the CPU) and as such be a huge win.

The idea behind Project Orion is to fold into Solaris a long list of products that Sun now sells separately, such as software that allows a customer to offer instant messaging or to create an easy-to-manage portal. Unlike Microsoft Windows, which includes any number of bundled applications (a browser, a media player, games), Orion allows Solaris users to replace Sun's offering with a competitor's at the click of a button.

So Sun is planning to give up the last advantage they have (given that the UltraSparc III is looking painfully dated now) and start bringing in other people's software? This is something that Microsoft can't do, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing. Obviously it's what we the FOSS community want until Linux is able to run on Sun's big iron at least as well as S

Throughput seems ingenious. One of the major challenges for chip designers is what's called memory latency. That's when a semiconductor sits idly while awaiting bits from a computer's memory needed to complete a given task. "We decided to stop fighting memory latency and learn how to live with it," says David Yen, the executive VP in charge of Sun's microprocessor division. As Yen describes it, a throughput chip constantly initiates new tasks, so it never sits idle. For example, while it awaits the information needed to complete a complex database search, it might launch a second and maybe a third and a fourth database query. Juggling tasks simultaneously rather than serially is known as multithreading, and Sun execs contend it's possible on systems running its machines but not on Wintel or Lintel boxes.

Sorry, but that's not quite what multithreading is. That's multitasking, actually, unless you are devoting one processor to the job, and then you just might be doing multiprocessing - actually, you are probably doing the first two at all times; add in the last one if you have a machine with multiple processors which are not used strictly for running individual tasks.

Moreover, Intel already offers a simplified version of throughput, dubbed hyperthreading. Its chips can process two distinct tasks simultaneously by tricking the operating system into thinking it's working with two processors rather than one.

So what it sounds like here is that Sun is trying to make a processor which can maintain multiple contexts at once. I'm not at all familiar with the SPARC or UltraSPARC architectures but on intel that means maintaining the instruction pointer and offset, the address pointers and offsets, and the state of the flags register. I would assume that one has similar registers on any processor, though those with a flat memory model rather than segmented (hello, 64 bit!) will have less registers to mess with, meaning that context switches will be less expensive. Say, I wonder if x86-64 sticks the segment and offset in different portions of a 64 bit address register (high and low, ala x86 registers) to reduce the cost of swapping them out in a 64 bit aware OS? That would be slick.

Sun also plans to insert multiple CPUs on a single chip; Duh. Thanks, Sun. When you find out how to make it reasonably priced, let us know. It would be a huge advantage if you combined it with the "throughput" (let us call it multiple-context since others are doing it already) technology somehow, though that seems like a harder problem than you might think. It would be most beneficial to be able to tie any CPU to any context, and to have more contexts than CPUs, for obvious reasons. This would remove most of the overhead of context switching (it might effectively remove all of it on systems whose fine-granularity tasks number less than the number of contexts in the CPU) and as such be a huge win.

The idea behind Project Orion is to fold into Solaris a long list of products that Sun now sells separately, such as software that allows a customer to offer instant messaging or to create an easy-to-manage portal. Unlike Microsoft Windows, which includes any number of bundled applications (a browser, a media player, games), Orion allows Solaris users to replace Sun's offering with a competitor's at the click of a button.

So Sun is planning to give up the last advantage they have (given that the UltraSparc III is looking painfully dated now) and start bringing in other people's software? This is something that Microsoft can't do, but that doesn't mean it's the right thing. Obviously it's what we the FOSS community want until Linux is able to run on Sun's big iron at least as well as S

Many of my predictions are indeed based on a number of different rumor sites, but not copied directly. Some of the rumors I've read I disagree with, and some I agree with.

For example, I think it was Mac OS Rumors that said the G5 will not be called the G5, and I disagree with them. This issue was also mentioned by As the Apple Turns, who said that according to AppleInsider, it would be called the PowerMac G5. I agree with them. That doesn't mean my prediction is based on theirs, merely that we both made the same prediction.

The nature of the PPC970 chip, and that Apple will use it at all, is based largely on a couple of articles at ArsTechnica, but they didn't say anything about when it would ship.

The 1.4, dual 1.6 and dual 1.8GHz clock speeds are consistent with Mac OS Rumors, although I'm sure I've seen other speeds suggested elsewhere. I believe I've heard 2GHz suggested, and I don't agree with that (not for WWDC). I forgot to mention pricing, but I predict the low-end and mid-range models will be $1499 and $1999 respectively; this is based on Apple's current pricing, not on any rumor site.

USB2 support I heard somewhere, but don't remember where (it had to do with motherboard specs). Bluetooth, FireWire 800 and Airport Extreme are currently shipping features.

I've heard about the 15" Aluminum PowerBook from a few sources I think. The PowerBook G5 has also been mentioned in multiple places including this Slashdot article, but I don't expect to see it until next year, possibly announced at MacWorld San Francisco but probably not.

The G5 shipping with 10.2 was a possibility I had been considering, but was confirmed by ThinkSecret and eWEEK. Same source for gcc 3.3. Pricing is based on Apple's history.

The multiple simultaneous users feature I heard from a few places quite some time ago; I don't remember where. Apple's WWDC material says Panther and WebCore will be demonstrated at WWDC; that's no secret. As for PAC and WPAD, I haven't seen that suggested anywhere.

In any case, a rumor is "A piece of unverified information of uncertain origin usually spread by word of mouth." Many of my predictions are based on rumors. The sites I got the rumors from are mostly just passing on rumors they've heard. I don't feel that not citing sources was inappropriate, since these are MY predictions, BASED ON what many others have said, not simply a copy of someone else's predictions. I would expect others to be able to make similar predictions, based on overlapping sources.

Losing my moderator status for this story and breaking my tradition of not posting inflammatory comments, I post reply because it's important for others to know that these are not YOUR predictions but the predictions of a number of rumor sites.

My predictions: you will, next time you post something written by another party you'll give them credit. That, or you'll post an obstinate reply about how you're justified in posting these as your own thoughts. For some reason the bar scene in "Good Will Hunting" comes to mind - the one where Will confronts an ivy-league student for "cock-blocking" his buddy.

Of course you could ignore this, or post a reply citing those sites you've plagiarized.

I hope you do the right thing.

But not right now - they're still simple systems, even the best of games

I still think that position that video games do not require skill is an absurd postion to take.

A skill is a 'developed talent or ability', you increase your skill at something through practice and training.

Your are choosing to determine that video games require no skill because they don't require a certain _level_ of skill, because they can be learned relatively quickly, which makes no sense unless your also willing to accept that other things which take a simiar time to learn (say, the recorder, tin whistle, karting, basic woodwork or metalwork) also do not require skill - which is just as absurd.

I can't see how an rational person could honestly think that being good a video games is not a 'developed talent or ability'. Frankly, I think you've decided upon an utterly absurd idea and are just trying to justify it. Changing 'your definition of skill' is just a means of shifting the argument to that end.

sic

Check the second definition supplied. Is this making more sense to you?

Was the word you were looking for "onomatopoeia". You weren't even close, but I can hardly blame you

i thought zion was ethiopia.. thats what da rasta man always tell meh...

i just looked it up: zion

1. The historic land of Israel as a symbol of the Jewish people.
2. The Jewish people; Israel.
3. A place or religious community regarded as sacredly devoted to God.
4 .An idealized, harmonious community; utopia.

personally i saw this movie asmore fitting with the 3rd point, the god being the survival of the human race embodied by neo

...which is understandable, because English is a messy bastard, but come on, some of these are obvious.

Nobody is really "sharing" as we traditionally think of the term. Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it. (Oppenheim)

The Dictionary (Well, several dictionaries, but anyway) disagree(s). The transitive verb shows up as "To divide and parcel out in shares; apportion." before "To participate in, use, enjoy, or experience jointly or in turns." Share can mean either to give someone some of what you have, or to lend someone all of what you have, or anything in between. However, one nice thing about any kind of media (digital or no) is that you can give someone a copy which does not actually deprive someone of it. In essence, you are not stealing it, at least, not according to Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary: "To take and carry away, feloniously; to take without right or leave, and with intent to keep wrongfully; as, to steal the personal goods of another." You are not carrying anything away, you have a copy. You are not stealing, you are (at worst) violating copyright law.

Just because you physically can check a CD out of the library and copy it does not mean that it is legal to do so. (Oppenheim)

However, it is legal to record music off the radio. How is checking a CD out of the library and copying it really any different? Either way you are getting the music from a public source and either way you are not paying for the album. Since you're usually only after one song, you could get it off the radio, but you can get a higher quality version from the library's CD copy.

From an ethical perspective, when individuals engage in illegal copying, they are taking money out of the pockets of all of the people who have put their hard work into making the music. (Oppenheim)

From an ethical perspective, when a label pays the artist and engineers pennies for each album sold, just what is that? Meanwhile, if I copy an album I never would have purchased, am I depriving anyone of anything? Don't answer that question, son, it was rhetorical.

P2P technologies can be used for totally legal purposes, even if they are also used for illegal purposes. Indeed, as they develop, the vast majority of uses of P2P technology will be legal. As the Supreme Court has rightly held, a technology is not illegal if it is capable of "substantial noninfringing uses." Every P2P technology that I have seen satisfies this test. (Lessig)

So, uh, what happened to Napster? (Another rhetorical question; they decided to play games with the Judge.)

in all of the cases that the record industry has filed in court against P2P [peer-to-peer] networks like Napster, Aimster, Kazaa, Morpheus, etc., we have not asked that the Court shut these services down. We have asked that the infringements be filtered out of the system. (Oppenheim)

However, for true peer to peer services like gnutella, or at least for unregulated and mostly p2p ones like Morpheus/Kazaa (Whatever that service is called, musiccity?) you can't filter because that functionality is not included. The clients talk to one another for the most part, and not to the central server, which only serves to connect users. So you can't filter without terminating them, and that means that you're asking that they be terminated. This is a non-answer.

The DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision is not intended to stifle technological innovation. Indeed, it is intended to spur it on by creating and protecting business markets for new technologies. (Lessig)

Uh. This is just plain wrong. The law as it is written preve

...which is understandable, because English is a messy bastard, but come on, some of these are obvious.

Nobody is really "sharing" as we traditionally think of the term. Sharing involves lending something to somebody, and while it is on loan, the owner no longer has it. (Oppenheim)

The Dictionary (Well, several dictionaries, but anyway) disagree(s). The transitive verb shows up as "To divide and parcel out in shares; apportion." before "To participate in, use, enjoy, or experience jointly or in turns." Share can mean either to give someone some of what you have, or to lend someone all of what you have, or anything in between. However, one nice thing about any kind of media (digital or no) is that you can give someone a copy which does not actually deprive someone of it. In essence, you are not stealing it, at least, not according to Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary: "To take and carry away, feloniously; to take without right or leave, and with intent to keep wrongfully; as, to steal the personal goods of another." You are not carrying anything away, you have a copy. You are not stealing, you are (at worst) violating copyright law.

Just because you physically can check a CD out of the library and copy it does not mean that it is legal to do so. (Oppenheim)

However, it is legal to record music off the radio. How is checking a CD out of the library and copying it really any different? Either way you are getting the music from a public source and either way you are not paying for the album. Since you're usually only after one song, you could get it off the radio, but you can get a higher quality version from the library's CD copy.

From an ethical perspective, when individuals engage in illegal copying, they are taking money out of the pockets of all of the people who have put their hard work into making the music. (Oppenheim)

From an ethical perspective, when a label pays the artist and engineers pennies for each album sold, just what is that? Meanwhile, if I copy an album I never would have purchased, am I depriving anyone of anything? Don't answer that question, son, it was rhetorical.

P2P technologies can be used for totally legal purposes, even if they are also used for illegal purposes. Indeed, as they develop, the vast majority of uses of P2P technology will be legal. As the Supreme Court has rightly held, a technology is not illegal if it is capable of "substantial noninfringing uses." Every P2P technology that I have seen satisfies this test. (Lessig)

So, uh, what happened to Napster? (Another rhetorical question; they decided to play games with the Judge.)

in all of the cases that the record industry has filed in court against P2P [peer-to-peer] networks like Napster, Aimster, Kazaa, Morpheus, etc., we have not asked that the Court shut these services down. We have asked that the infringements be filtered out of the system. (Oppenheim)

However, for true peer to peer services like gnutella, or at least for unregulated and mostly p2p ones like Morpheus/Kazaa (Whatever that service is called, musiccity?) you can't filter because that functionality is not included. The clients talk to one another for the most part, and not to the central server, which only serves to connect users. So you can't filter without terminating them, and that means that you're asking that they be terminated. This is a non-answer.

The DMCA Anti-Circumvention provision is not intended to stifle technological innovation. Indeed, it is intended to spur it on by creating and protecting business markets for new technologies. (Lessig)

Uh. This is just plain wrong. The law as it is written preve

and you are a bigot. Do you want to use bigoted viewpoints? I know I don't.

Did you mean Orthography ? Thanks for the new word, though!

Islamists call the people of Israel and all countries that support Israel (esp. the U.S.) 'Zionists', referring I'm sure to Mt. Zion...

To be precise, they are referring to Zionism, a racist ideology very popular in Israel.

Based on the rest of the comments throughout this entire topic, I can only conclude that the average /. reader slept through their history classes.

To wit: yes, the Egyptian censorship is about Zion (in the movie) and Zionism. The fact that most people missed this implies they don't know what Zionism is.

Zionism refers to a Jewish movement that arose in the late 19th century in response to growing anti-Semitism and sought to reestablish a Jewish homeland in Palestine.. To dismiss it as "a racist ideology very popular in Israel," as above, is to ignore the roots of the mideast conflict.

Put simply, Zionism was a movement based on the belief that as long as the Jews lived as ethnic minorities in other countries, they were going to be discriminated against ("discriminated" meaning "killed and robbed whenever public tension needed an outlet" - read up on the Pogroms sometime). The Dreyfus Affair convinced a reporter named Theodor Herzl that the only solution was for a Jewish homeland. He founded the Zionism movement, with the goal of creating a Jewish state. This movement slowly fought for progress over the next 50 years (see also the Balfour Declaration)

Fast-forward to 1948. After 6 million or so Jews were killed in the Holocaust, the survivors got serious about a homeland. With lots of leftover guns lying around from World War II, they founded Israel. In doing so, they resorted to terrorism, and displaced much of the non-Jewish palestinian population.

None of the neighboring countries wanted to absorb the Palestinians, and something like 6 wars have been fought since then. So, for the Egyptians, Zionism represents a massive local disruption which they've lost wars over.

So-called "Modern Zionism" is the "racist ideology" referred to above, which basically boils down to "Jewish Israel - love it or leave it." To focus on it and ignore over 100 years of history is short-sighted.

1. The historic land of Israel as a symbol of the Jewish people.
2. The Jewish people; Israel.
3. A place or religious community regarded as sacredly devoted to God.
4. An idealized, harmonious community; utopia.

The music industry loves to draw the analogy between stealing tangible products (shoplifting a CD, etc.) and making copies of intangible products that leave the original untouched, and of course they use the term "theft" to describe making those copies. For those who would mindlessly nod their heads and mumble about how correct this analogy must be, a simple definition of "theft" puts the lie to it:

...The act of stealing; specifically, the felonious taking and removing of personal property, with an intent to deprive the rightful owner of the same...

(emphasis mine)

I'm not saying that making copies is not a violation of our woefully-imbalanced copyright laws, because in many cases it is a violation of the law (i.e., when no permission from the copyright owner exists, whether on an individual or advance license basis). But the "shoplifting" analogy should immediately result in derisive laughter until the person presenting it is silenced and never brings it up again.

Just my humble opinion, of course. :-)

Jason yeilds his toothless chainsaw...

I'm going to assume you meant "yields" when you wrote "yeilds". However, I don't think you meant to imply that Jason gives over possession of or surrenders his chainsaw, especially since you called it toothless. Instead, Jason handles [his toothless chainsaw] with skill and ease. That the chainsaw is toothless is the point; while he may be skilled at wielding his chainsaw, it's completely ineffective.

Jason yeilds his toothless chainsaw...

I'm going to assume you meant "yields" when you wrote "yeilds". However, I don't think you meant to imply that Jason gives over possession of or surrenders his chainsaw, especially since you called it toothless. Instead, Jason handles [his toothless chainsaw] with skill and ease. That the chainsaw is toothless is the point; while he may be skilled at wielding his chainsaw, it's completely ineffective.

(emphasis added by me)

They are just trying to make a buck and do it all in one foul swoop.

Though I appreciate that SCO's tactics may be foul, the phrase you're looking for is one fell swoop, as used by Shakespeare. And while you may feel that the use of "foul" may be an appropriate exchange in this case, I assure you that fell is much more so. Observe:

fell, adj.

1. Of an inhumanly cruel nature; fierce: fell hordes.
2. Capable of destroying; lethal: a fell blow.
3. Dire; sinister: by some fell chance.

(definition taken from dictionary.com)

(emphasis added by me)

They are just trying to make a buck and do it all in one foul swoop.

Though I appreciate that SCO's tactics may be foul, the phrase you're looking for is one fell swoop, as used by Shakespeare. And while you may feel that the use of "foul" may be an appropriate exchange in this case, I assure you that fell is much more so. Observe:

fell, adj.

1. Of an inhumanly cruel nature; fierce: fell hordes.
2. Capable of destroying; lethal: a fell blow.
3. Dire; sinister: by some fell chance.

(definition taken from dictionary.com)

definition for 'unix'

UNIX: A trademark used for a computer disk operating system.

A powerful operating system developed at the Bell Telephone Laboratories ........

Unix" or "UNIX"? Both seem roughly equally popular, perhaps
with a historical bias towards the latter. "UNIX" is a
registered trademark of The Open Group, however, since it is
a name and not an acronym, "Unix" has been adopted in this
dictionary except where a larger name includes it in upper
case. Since the OS is case-sensitive and exists in many
different versions, it is fitting that its name should reflect
this

So, the US is a democratic republic (if one overlooks the sham presidential election of 2000 - bring in the Belgians!). Contrast this with a constitutional monarchy as we have in Australia - we are not a republic, since our head of state is a monarch (much to my chagrin and embarrasment), but our government is elected by the people, so we are a democracy.

From Dictionary.com:
Democracy :
1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.

Republic :
1. a) political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president.