Slashdot Mirror

I'm going to assume you actually aren't aware of what's going on, and that you're not deliberately trying to pretend, and supply you with some reading material. Please consider the following articles in support of my statements:

Let's start with the no-fly list:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/07/25/no_fl y/index_np.html
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/ 09/27/MNNOFLY.TMP&nl=top
http://www.globenet.free-online.co.uk/reports/prot estersdetained.htm
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/957183/po sts

This one's just fun: they barred Ted Kennedy (the senator):
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/19/senator_on _terror_watch/

And this one just basically says the No-Fly list is managed rather stupidly:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/04/07/aclu-suit/

Now lets look at the Patriot act:

First, this google search returns almost 3 million hits on patriot act abuses:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Patriot+Ac t%22+abuses&btnG=Google+Search

Here's a detailed analysis by the ACLU about what's wrong with the Patriot Act:
http://www.aclu.org//safefree/general/17203leg2003 0214.html

Here's a Register article about how the Patriot Act isn't being used against terrorists, but rather regular criminals (a group for which the act was not meant to be used, I'd consider that an abuse), side-stepping their civil liberties:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/05/22/us_antiter ror_law_used_against/

Here's an article about an interesting talk that went on at Harvard about the subject:
http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/voices/2003 10/1010abuses.html

Here's a fun reprint of a Village Voice article about the NYPD seeking to spy on protestors and such:
http://www.refuseandresist.org/police_state/art.ph p?aid=619

I could go on and on, but I think I've made my point. The Patriot Act should be quietly killed off and our civil liberties re-affirmed.

Enjoy your readings...

I thought this from Salon was interesting ...

for those not intereseted in RTFA, the punchline is
"Until we demand that corporations start acting like real citizens at home, it's a little hard to expect that they are going to be good guys abroad."

Indeed, at least google does the exact same thing. There was an interesting article in Salon a while back about the way in which foreign IT firms play a big and subservient role in chinese official efforts to censor the net. You can find the article here.

Or do a Halo tourney with Julia Roberts.

All these games have the advantages that the action is slower (and easier to follow) than normal DM, and the team-sport objective-oriented games of CTF are more entertaining to follow than the frantic mayhem of DM.

Bah. Daschle wasn't chairman of anything, except maybe the "royal order of waffling weenies with big red Ls stamped on their foreheads". I, for one, was thoroughly glad to see his political career end abruptly.

http://salon.com/comics/tomo/2002/10/21/tomo/

In general I don't approve of pardoning anyone unless they are innocent (i.e. railroaded). So no I don't approve of Clinton's pardon of Lasater (as Governor of Arkansas). This is mainly because pardon's are largely used as a way to:

a) Provide rewards to campaign contributors.
b) Shield the President and his administration from possible scandal.

But don't get all preachy about pardon's because Republicans are notorious for covering their tracks with pardons. They pardon money lau

Regarding Lasater himself. Don't get all preachy about all that Mena Arkasas stuff. I think something fishy went on. But I don't think that Clinton had ANY power to influence a CIA operation. If you investigate, it will lead you straight back to Oliver North and straight up to President Bush Sr.

Mena is one of those weird instances where both parties seem to have simply "dropped" the issue because they were both in for a world of embarrassment. And don't tell me that Lasater was "Bill's dealer" (though it is likely that he dealt for Clinton's brother). Clinton is to well put together to deal with that shit. But one COULD make the case that George was pardoning HIS drug dealers (or his brother's, or his brother's children's) because to this day, George REFUSES to deny that he has done drugs.

You say Clinton pardoned people before their sentence was over. How about Bush Sr pardoning people before they ever got to trial (the Iran-Contra conspirators)? And of course, the ULTIMATE pardon of all time, the Ford pardon of Nixon which effectively prevented any further investigation in the so-called "second rate burglary" and the grander scheme of ILLEGAL domestic spying that Nixon was engaged in.

http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns /030601.htm
http://www.salon.com/news/col/cona/2001/02/27/pard ons/

If this is an issue of restoring a "civil liberty", I think it's bogus. I don't really don't CARE about expungement and I really don't approve of THAT either for the same reason that I don't care for pardons. They are used as political chips. If serving your sentence warrants the return of a civil liberty, than you return it to ALL citizens, not just a select few who pay the right amount of money to a political action committee.

So there, I don't think EITHER party should engage in pardons or expungement (except in the case of minors) or commutations (except for commuting death penalties). And I think the legislative bodies should be able to overturn pardons as well by a simple majority vote.

The fact that everyone keeps bringing up everyone ELSE's pardons to me is a good thing. But don't be a partisan. And just remember that it's the Republicans that are the "tough on drugs" party. So hold yourself to a higher standard.

Personally, I'm for drug legalization. The drug war is just a big waste of time to me. But I say to you, hold yourself to your own standards!!!!

Hey, everyone. We've gotten quite a bit of flack from a lot of friends, family members, other bands and oddly enough several religious denominations on how we run things in Bomb The Music Industry!... no "merchandise", having everything available for free, making shirts and burning CDs and asking for donations if people would like us to continue to do stuff this way.

Well, we broke even. Again. That's the second time.

And yes, we didn't get FOOD every now and then. And sure we had to get drunk on our own money. But we did it pretty much.

Have a read at http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/01/03/mammo th/print.html

They're already considering it :-)

I feel the FCC is one of the most unconstitutional organizations in the Federal government today.

The FCC is basically the big media conglomerates arm in government, creating an extremely high cost of entry in media markets, preventing smaller companies or individuals from trying to compete. The days when we needed the FCC are over -- we have so many different ways to communicate that we don't need any regulation over those systems. Any regulation that takes 5 years to create will be superceded by competitive companies finding loopholes (or bribing their way past restrictions).

Even the old belief that airwaves are limited and should be regulated is bunk. Interference from large broadcasters is a myth. Ever wonder how your house can have 3 cell phones, 3 cordless phones and 15 wireless accessories work together? It isn't the FCC that's helping this situation, it is manufacturers working with one another so they can all compete.

The telephone company is dead -- as WiFi or faster wireless bandwidth is made available, even cell phones will be antiquated. I can imagine a near-future of open bandwidth, frequency-hopping competitive technologies that walk all over each other yet don't conflict. The more power you want to broadcast, the more energy you'll need to do so. If some large radio tower company wanted to block EVERY FREQUENCY for hundreds of miles, do you know how much it would cost them? Look at just the FM radio spectrum -- they couldn't afford it. A 50,000 watt radio station broadcasting at one tiny sliver of a frequency has a HUGE electric bill. The only way you could stay in business is with advertisers, and who wants to be affiliated with a company that burns everyone's communications?

Without the FCC, we'd see thousands or tens of thousands of community broadcasters. Picture Mr. Universe versus 10,000 mosquitos. Who would win?

If the FCC regulates the Internet, we'll find ways to get around it. The user can obfuscate transmitted information faster than our government can decode it. If they find quick ways to decode it, we'll find other ways to hide information within information. The FCC can attempt to regulate the Internet, but it will be a failure. Information has found freedom, and there is no stopping it. 6 year olds are using google, 72 year olds are using Skype. Can a government "of the People, by the People and for the People" go against the People any long?

I'm ready to make an effigy of the FCC and burn it. Are you?

How does that prove anything? Time Warner decides who is Person of the Year. They are easily bought and sold.

"Microsoft -- along with many other corporate givers -- has turned Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth into a strategic marketing tool.

...

... behind the scenes, Microsoft works hard to maximize the strategic impact of all of that love for their fellow man. Two years ago [1995], the company hired an outside consultant, Craig Smith, to devise a strategic plan to direct Microsoft's corporate giving in ways that guarantee the greatest return to the company.

...

Microsoft is also seizing a beachhead in the public libraries ... Unlike Carnegie, who didn't profit a dime from his support of libraries, Microsoft is expecting its investment to pay dividends in the future. "

From some more coverage:

The U2 frontman, speaking of his collaboration with the Gateses on tackling global health, said: "When an Irish rock star starts talking about it, people go, yeah, you're paid to be indulged and have these ideas.

"But when Bill Gates says you can fix malaria in 10 years, they know he's done a few spreadsheets."

Was that the same Gates who once said that spam would be solved by 2006 (who now has just under 2 weeks to make it happen)?

Just wonderin'.

Do you think maybe they were eavesdroppping on him too?

(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the President, through the Attorney General, may authorize electronic surveillance without a court order under this subchapter to acquire foreign intelligence information for periods of up to one year if the Attorney General certifies in writing under oath that... there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party;

Oh man, fuck Christmas.

Seriously - are you kidding me with this "There's a war on Christmas" bullshit? FOX News wasn't raking in enough cash already from all the Christmas commercials for Kill 'em All Barbie and Girls Gone Wild Brand Toddler Gear ? They had to start publishing books about some bogus attack on Christianity? And who did they pick to lead this particular charge?

John fucking Gibson. This guy has wiener written all over him.

Bill O'Reilly gets all the credit as the biggest nutcase in FOXville, but Gibson really deserves his own special wing in the happy house. This motherfucker's embedded assignment reads "Up Karl Rove's ass."

What makes him such a dick? I mean, besides making a fortune by screaming hysterically about how oppressed Christians are by the other twenty percent? How about advocating bombing countries that don't vote the way we want in their own elections? Way to encourage democracy, fuckhead. And maybe he was kidding when he wished, on air, that the French had gotten the 2012 Olympics instead of the Brits so the terrorists would "blow up Paris," but it might have been just a touch over the top to call for it again on the day of the London train bombings. Classy move, asshole.

And really? That's just scratching the fucking surface. Anyone remember who was responsible for the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City? John does: Iraq. And speaking of Iraq, Gibson thinks Rove deserves a fucking medal for outing that CIA agent. And, like any good reporter, he wanted to burn the Florida ballots after his buddy Bush got "elected" rather than, I don't know, count them? "Is this a case where knowing the facts actually would be worse than not knowing?" That right there is why sometimes it's useful for journalists to go to, what do you call that fucking place? Oh yeah, journalism school.

And now he's all worked up about Christmas being stolen. What is this, the fucking Fairytale Network? It's a national fucking holiday and we're spending gobs of our hard-earned tax dollars on wreaths and lights for your special Santa day. But these bastards are all "But they call them Holiday trees!" Here's a clue: no, they fucking don't. Ok, maybe in a couple places, like on FOXNews.com and at the White House, but if Christmas is under attack, I'm Kris fucking Kringle.

And guess who's stealing Christmas, according to Gibson. Go on -- guess. "A cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers, cultural relativists, and liberal, guilt-wra

Oh man, fuck Christmas.

Seriously - are you kidding me with this "There's a war on Christmas" bullshit? FOX News wasn't raking in enough cash already from all the Christmas commercials for Kill 'em All Barbie and Girls Gone Wild Brand Toddler Gear ? They had to start publishing books about some bogus attack on Christianity? And who did they pick to lead this particular charge?

John fucking Gibson. This guy has wiener written all over him.

Bill O'Reilly gets all the credit as the biggest nutcase in FOXville, but Gibson really deserves his own special wing in the happy house. This motherfucker's embedded assignment reads "Up Karl Rove's ass."

What makes him such a dick? I mean, besides making a fortune by screaming hysterically about how oppressed Christians are by the other twenty percent? How about advocating bombing countries that don't vote the way we want in their own elections? Way to encourage democracy, fuckhead. And maybe he was kidding when he wished, on air, that the French had gotten the 2012 Olympics instead of the Brits so the terrorists would "blow up Paris," but it might have been just a touch over the top to call for it again on the day of the London train bombings. Classy move, asshole.

And really? That's just scratching the fucking surface. Anyone remember who was responsible for the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City? John does: Iraq. And speaking of Iraq, Gibson thinks Rove deserves a fucking medal for outing that CIA agent. And, like any good reporter, he wanted to burn the Florida ballots after his buddy Bush got "elected" rather than, I don't know, count them? "Is this a case where knowing the facts actually would be worse than not knowing?" That right there is why sometimes it's useful for journalists to go to, what do you call that fucking place? Oh yeah, journalism school.

And now he's all worked up about Christmas being stolen. What is this, the fucking Fairytale Network? It's a national fucking holiday and we're spending gobs of our hard-earned tax dollars on wreaths and lights for your special Santa day. But these bastards are all "But they call them Holiday trees!" Here's a clue: no, they fucking don't. Ok, maybe in a couple places, like on FOXNews.com and at the White House, but if Christmas is under attack, I'm Kris fucking Kringle.

And guess who's stealing Christmas, according to Gibson. Go on -- guess. "A cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers, cultural relativists, and liberal, guilt-wra

and I think online is something that comes very naturally to us.

Then go download the country's voting records and judge for yourself

The voting machines that were tested post election consistantly made "mistakes" in favor of republicans... and now there's a Diebold insider that confirms those reports.

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=28174
http://ideamouth.com/voterfraud.htm
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/19/172 7222&tid=172&tid=103&tid=219
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Diebold_insider__all eges_company_plagued_1206.html
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/09/23/bev_h arris/index_np.html

Anything else I can do for you?

I'm sure that it wasn't Lewis' intention to push down christianity down the readers' throats, perhaps he just wanted to make his writings useful for christians, or to explain parts of christianity somehow.

I think that people have become seriously disappointed of christians, because of the amount of fundamentalism and zealotry present in today's christian environment. So they reject anything that resembles or includes christianity. But we need to go back to Tolkien and Lewis' environment, and see, from their point of view, that they went to church, where priests were still respected and earned that respect.

Here is a source for the Tokien-Lewis relationship. It is indeed true that Tolkien (and Dyson) persuaded Lewis to turn to Christianity in that infamous long walk. The second, usually unmentioned part of that story is: Tolkien hated Narnia.

I also find it strange that no one comments on the observation that, while Christian in message, the characters and themes in Narnia are unmistakably pagan in nature. But I guess you could say that about Christianity in general.

Congratulations to Mr. Brandt for his continuing effort to prove he is not a public figure by hitching himself to this controversy and getting quoted by the New York Times yet again. In his attacks on Wikipedia for creating an article about him, he claimed he was in fact not a public figure, despite his half dozen plus appearances in the Times and more in other publications. It's obvious from his use of this controversy to promote himself and from his hit list of Wikipedia editors that he has no real interest in privacy issues, he's just pissed that the Wikipedia article about him had links to two sites critical of him, an article in Salon (http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/08/29/goog le_watch/) and http://www.google-watch-watch.org/.

True, there are a number of people with the "gimme" mentality. However, there are a few other factors to consider:

1) Would these misers have been willing to splash out for the product anyway? Probably not. For example, a copyright infringer with 1,000 albums on his/her hard drive would never have been able to afford more than a couple of percent of that. In fact, being miserly, they probably wouldn't have bought more than five albums, if that, coming to a grand total of $15*5 = $75 lost sales at absolute maximum. Of course, the RIAA would count this as $15*1,000 = £15,000 of lost sales.

2) To what extent is this countered by the increased exposure of the target demographic to the product? Say the above miserly copyright infringer uploads 2,000 copies of assorted albums to other people. Now say just 5% of recipients are honest (probably a low figure), and go out and buy just 5% of the albums they receive. The money spent is then $15*2,000*0.05*0.05 = $75 - cancelling out the original "loss" to the copyright holder. (No I didn't fudge my numbers, it was just a flukey estimate)

3) (This one applies to music) How much of this actually goes to the artist? Since the misers who are forced to buy albums if the filesharing networks close aren't exactly publically-minded citizens, they'll just get their albums from the stores. By Courtney Love's arithmetic, the record label gets about $50 profit from the $75 spent, whilst the artists get a total of $2.38 profit. Now, if the albums are downloaded and then paid for, the recipients are likely to be individuals who are sympathetic to the plight of musicians, and hence will often donate via a band's site or buy from an ethical label, as I did just last night (despite being a poor student). Result: the artist is likely to get at least 1/2 the loot, a 1500% increase over the other system

4) (This one applies to software) What happens when people want to use a superb tool like Lightwave in a professional context? They have to license it, or recommend that it be licensed. So, by not shooting down the bored teenage downloader who'd never be able to afford this $800 software, Newtek is able to sell several copies to the company he/she ends up working for. It's like farming only not.

In conclusion, the positive side-effects of wide-ranging copyright infringement will often outweigh the negative side-effects, especially in industries where the content producers are getting shafted or where the product is most lucratively licensed in a professional context. There's probably an equivalent argument for films but my brain's dead.

Speaking of ruptured braincells, there's at least two errors in the above calculations. I'm too tired to figure out how to correct them, so I'll just say: please give bonus points to anyone who finds three mistakes :)

Downloading your free music and dooming these entertainers to lives of only semi-luxury. How do you sleep at night mister?

After reading the article I got to thinking about the controversy surrounding the subjective assessment of a patent. When does a patent become too general? When does it go from covering an invention to covering something that is convention?

I think it's especially terrifying in the computer world because it seems that many USPTO employees don't know what is standard practice and what is innovation. This article from Salon reviews some ridiculous patents and patent claims

Generally subjectivity plays a small role in governmental organizations (think about the IRS and all its coded forms). It seems that the USPTO is a strange organization in that sense. Does anyone know how the process works? To me it seems as if it's just reviewed by a bunch of people who may or may not understand what it is their awarding a patent to.

The invisible hand can work. We just need to let it.

Radio died long before the advancement of XM and Sirius.

Taken from The Myth of Media Piracy: [jmcardle.com]
It died when in 1996, the US Federal Communication Commission changed the laws on radio station ownership, removing the limits on how many stations a single company could own. As a consequence, Clear Channel was able to take over station after station. Within a matter of years, it owned 1,200 stations across the United-States; including 247 of the 250 largest radio markets.[1] This severely limited the amount and variety of new music being played on the airwaves. As Touré, a contributing editor to the Rolling Stones put it, "So now if you can't get through Clear Channel, or you can't get through MTV, how does anybody know your record is out?"[2] The fact is, no one can. Furthermore, polls indicated that youths were being turned off by the lack of fresh music on the air.[3]

Radio seemingly play the same 10 songs over and over. It doesn't help that labels like Sony BMG illegally bribed stations to play the tunes they wanted.[4]

These new technologies represent what radio should be: music. Not the worst crap of the 80s/90s repeated every hour. Unfortunately, these technologies either cost money (Sirius), or have to pay such insane royalty fees that they have no choice but to fall in the realm of illegality (Internet Radio). Did you know that an Internet Radio station has to pay $25,000 in royalties every day if it has 10,000 listeners? [5] Traditional radio on the other hand don't have to pay any royalties.

Sources:
1. http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2001/04/30/clear_ channel/
2. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/musi c/interviews/toure.html
3. http://www.radiodiversity.com/faceofradio.html
4. http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050725/music_probe.html?.v =11
5. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2002- 07-21-radio_x.htm

Local lawmakers rushed to introduce emergency legislation banning the use of cyclotrons in home businesses. State health officials took similar steps, and have suspended Swank's permit to operate cyclotrons on his property.

This the same lawmakers who wanted a A bridge to nowhere costing $941 Million?

In chapter 3 of his story "Themepunks."
Link to chapter 3 of themepunks on Salon.com

Unfortunately, you have to watch ads to read salon.

I didn't find anything about a lynching, but I did find this article on salon about a Pediatrician whose house was vandalized by people who mistook her title for pedophile. It's actually somewhat disturbing to me that there are angry, stupid, illiterate people out there who think they're right and other people are wrong. You know what those people are called, right? Voters.

My point is that central planning actually did allow for tremendous leaps in industrial capacity in very short periods of time. Of course, the human cost was staggering, and it was probably not efficiently done.

Yes. I agree that central leadership and central spending of money can push things along. But market mechanisms are the way to make things happen efficiently. Counting raw industrial capacity misses that industrial capacity is useless unless it is making the right things.

With regards to the specific issue of finding a sustainable energy source, it is pretty clear to me that some form of active government intervention is necessary, if for no other reason than that the initial investment in R&D is larger than what the private sector can provide.

It depends on the kind of government intervention you mean. But we should first start by changing the policies that tilt the playing field in favor of unsustainable energy sources.

Right now we charge for or regulate some pollutants but we let people emit CO2 for free, and our pollution charges are probably lower than the net societal cost. If we charge fairly for the use of common resources like we do with radio spectrum auctions, that would go a long way to helping things. Eliminating subsidies for coal, oil, and nuclear wouldn't be a bad thing. We can make it easier to allow grassroots adoption of sustainable power, which is currently way too hard. And we should allow individual consumers to pay extra for sustainable power when they want.

The prooof is obvious - if it had been possible it would have been done by now. ;) That last is not as glib as it sounds: a sustainable energy solution will have to be better (cheaper, less polluting) than fossil fuels in order to be adopted at all. If it is better, then there is no reason it couldn't be adopted now. In which case the question is: then why hasn't some entrepreneur already found it?

Once the playing field is made level, we may need to do little else. Even with the modest R&D we've been doing, the cost of solar power has been dropping steadily for quite a while; for some people it's already economical. And beyond that, it might be sufficient for government intervention to be more in terms of providing leadership. The people that I know who work on this kind of thing have been pretty disheartened lately by Bush and Cheney's obvious bias for traditional energy corporations. Just declaring and promoting a goal of national energy independence might be enough to make big changes. If not, you can always tip the playing field in the other direction by over-taxing unsustainable energy.

But none of that requires letting politicians force particular technologies on us.

Here is what I found so far...

http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/
http://archive.corporatewatch.org/profiles/microso ft/microsoft.pdf
http://www.proudlyserving.com/archives/2005/03/dis liking_micro.html
http://www.salon.com/tech/special/microsoft/
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Microsoft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft#1995.E2.80. 9399:_foray_into_the_Internet_and_other_venues
http://uk-linux.news-view.co.uk/topic-6268.html

Unfortunately, I didn't find a comprehensive timeline of Microsoft's misdeeds.

Considering that psychopath & sociopath were interchangeable at one point, I think its fair to say that most people know a sociopath when they see one.

And I don't mean it in the sense that "he's a wack job because he disagrees with me."

try this article about a book called "the sociopath next door"
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2005/03/22/sociop ath/index_np.html
http://www.salon.com/news/cookie756.html --skip their ad based crap

Basically, the author makes the case that there are a lot of people who meet the definition of a sociopath without being over-the-top batshit-insane.

Thompson probably has other mental health issues he needs to deal with besides whatever sociopathic tendancies he's exhibiting.

Considering that psychopath & sociopath were interchangeable at one point, I think its fair to say that most people know a sociopath when they see one.

And I don't mean it in the sense that "he's a wack job because he disagrees with me."

try this article about a book called "the sociopath next door"
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2005/03/22/sociop ath/index_np.html
http://www.salon.com/news/cookie756.html --skip their ad based crap

Basically, the author makes the case that there are a lot of people who meet the definition of a sociopath without being over-the-top batshit-insane.

Thompson probably has other mental health issues he needs to deal with besides whatever sociopathic tendancies he's exhibiting.

They've already tried it. Subliminal advertising doesn't work, but there was a report in Salon magazine a few years ago about hypnotizing people (note: obnoxious ad to get access) to get their unconscious reactions to various consumer products for marketing research.

While I neither rammed other people's cars nor pulled out a rocket launcher to teach the cop a lesson, I certainly KNOW that games can bleed into reality and if the person is just messed up enough in the head already, I don't doubt they could live out the game.

I have full faith that video games can inspire actual crimes, especially by children/teenagers, who are more easily influenced by them. No doubt whatsoever.

Granted, I don't think that the game will actually -cause- the crime, merely influence what shape it takes. Kids may actually be inspired to shoot into traffic (sorry, too lazy to look for a better link) by Grand Theft Auto...but these same kids, minus the video game to mold their crime, would probably have just tortured the neighbors cat, or burned somebody's house down, or dropped bricks off of overpasses, or whatever. And they may still have managed to kill somebody.

Face it, there are thousands of little sociopaths running around this country (by which I mean the US). Odds are most of them play video games. So when one of these little idiots gets busted doing something stupid, of course they'll try to blame it on whatever game they played that day. Never mind the millions of other kids who play videogames, even GTA-style games, and never do anything so stupid or reckless, of course...much the same way millions of kids over the years have played D&D and not killed themselves, or listened to death metal and not killed themselves, or done all three and not gone on a school shooting rampage. It's gotta be GTA's fault, or Doom's fault, or Ozzy's fault, or whatever.

Videogames (as well as every other cultural scare that parents have concocted) are the scapegoat our society uses to try to hide the fact that it cranks out some truly -bad- people, as well as some that are just truly stupid. Nobody wants to believe that their kid is just a sociopath, or an idiot.

Over here in England, there's relatively little gun crime. Due to the 1997 ban on handguns, guns any more lethal than hunting rifles or shotguns (which need licenses to possess) are very expensive (if you can find someone to vend one to you) and will get you detained at her Majesty's pleasure for a good long time if they catch you with one. Ball Bearing guns are treated in a manner similar to switchblades - they aren't allowed out in public, and threatening somebody with them is likely to get you in serious trouble.

Less than 10% of the police force is armed, and these particular officers are only deployed in emergencies like bank heists, terrorist alerts and the like. As a result, firearms aren't leaked into society through the police force (check the firearm saturation here. Homicide levels in the USA were 5 times what they were in the UK (admittedly, the survey was carried out about a decade ago and the number has been falling, and both countries use slightly different methods for deciding what's a homicide and what isn't, but 5 times?).

In my opinion, all this stuff about video games causing murderous feelings to arise is down to a few isolated incidents, where it's the gun that causes the deaths, but games are cited as the reason. It's not as if this type of media hasn't been blasted in our faces since the first action movie. The argument that 'games make you the killer' is nonsense - they're people on the screen, and all the gamer is doing is moving control sticks.

Or: The artists themselves get x% of every sale, with wich they have to pay back the record company because most of the costs to produce an album is recoupable. So they have to sell 2.5 times as much if their songs are sold for 0.99 than when they start at 2.49.

With crappy songs that the "c00l" kids will buy at any price and everybody else don't want for free, I can see what the fuzz is all about.

So I think the article means something like "If the artists don't play it the RIAA's way, the artists will have to work much harder to pay their debt to the RIAA".

How the RIAA holds artists hostage:
http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/l ove/print.html
http://www.negativland.com/albini.html

that freeing up of a portions of the frequency spectrum is not going to lead us to wireless panacea?

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/03/12/spect rum/

The solution is in smart end-points, not "reservation" of a tiny slice of frequency.

At least, that's what Bill Gates seems to be up to these days.

Salon just had a nice article on the subject of rehabilitation vs punishment. Most of the meat of the article is on the second page.

In the 1960s, imprisoning a half million people for smoking pot in the USA would have seemed laughable. Forty years later, that is roughly the number of people in prison for non-violent drug offenses, many of them for marijuana.
    http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/409/toohigh.sh tml

Many other prisoners are also there for things like theft related to a drug habit (despite that addiction is often more a medical problem, or sometimes also from an economic problem leading to depression which our society refuses to deal with).

One major reason pot was pushed to be illegal is because hemp is such a versatile product and threatened timber and paper monopolies (although there were other factors as well).
    http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/ whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html
    http://www.cannabis.com/faqs/hemp2.shtml
    http://www.theagitator.com/archives/002065.php

So, will it be any surprise if copyright laws go the same way -- towards Richard Stallman's "Right to Read" cautionary tale?
    http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Will there be a half million kids in prison for using file sharing software in a couple of decades? Or just even using GNU/Linux? :-)

Agreed. VA Linux's IPO was in 1999. I think it's safe to say that most big businesses were well aware of Linux before 2001.

http://www.salon.com/tech/log/1999/12/10/va_linux/

Probably one of the big mistakes they made was marginalizing Jim Clark, who founded the company. Michael Lewis's book on Clark, The New New Thing is well worth reading.

So by that you must mean you want to just say "yes"?

I regularly read newspapers from the US, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, latin america and Denmark. IT's interesting to see them looking for different formulas to adapt to the challenges of the internet.

Several french newspapers (like Liberation and Le Monde) have tried to specialize their print and web based deliveries in such a way that the print edition offers in depth reports and analisys, while the web based portion is kept up to date with the cutting-edge-now-unfolding stuff. A few spanish papers seem to be following this trend (like El Pais).

I get the impression that danish papers don't really have a strategy, which stikes me as odd since Denmark is one of the most wired countries in the world. A lot of newspapers there seem to see their web presence as a way to publicize their paper and maybe sell a few stories, but there is no overarching strategy.


In the US you see lots of different approaches, like the Wall Street Journal which practically cut itself out of the blogging trend by keeping all of its material under lock and key except to paying subscribers, thereby insuring that their stories aren't linked to, the New York Times wants you to sell your soul to read anything, and Salon has the interesting strategy of making you watch an add to read their stuff. A kind of contract based approach.

I would really like to see a comparative study of the merits and shortcomings of different approaches. I would also like to see studies on how different reader demographics respond to different paper-web mixes.

...this money he gives away is not coming out of his salary, or even the profits of his company. It comes directly out of the pockets of the shareholders of the company.

Oh, come on. I'm as critical as anyone when it comes to Bill's approach to business and the practices of his company, but no one has given more to charity in the history of the planet, or so I've read.

If you have good evidence that he's really spending other people's money for charity, let's see it. If your criticism is that by giving money, he's having a secondary effect on Microsoft stock prices, I don't buy it.

The closest thing to a legitimate criticism of his philanthropy I've seen is that he's funding Intelligent Design proponants, but it's not entirely clear that was intentional.

5% of newspaper revenues? Presumably that only counts online newspapers that have corresponding print media. What about online news sources that are exclusively online such as Slate and Salon? Salon has been getting my money for years instead of my local Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Funny how this article came out while Cory Doctorow is serializing a novel about small temporary businesses that just glue together the resources available. I think some of the text in the article was lifted directly from the first chapter.

Here's a pointer to Amazon, and you can read some excerpts and an interview in the Salon archives.
(No, I'm not Ullman...)

Here's a pointer to Amazon, and you can read some excerpts and an interview in the Salon archives.
(No, I'm not Ullman...)