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All science is either physics or stamp collecting.

Uncle Buck, 1989.

I'm sure you've already heard this old quote, but it deserves repeating:

"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."

Attempting to prevent people from copying digital versions of your books will fail. Even if one person has to manually scan in pages from a paper version of your book and upload the OCR'd result to some network, if people want to get your content for free, they will.

This is the point of the Internet. We share information, and everyone benefits. This isn't to say that you shouldn't be able to make money, it's just to say that de facto you don't have a monopoly on information.

We may also finally find out what the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway really is.

The simple point was that there will always be some option to view content.

Only for as long as the concept of "Intellectual Property" continues to exist. When/if the people I mentioned prevail (which is likely, because "free" stuff is so tempting, the temptation crowds-out reason), the only content for you would be, what the government or other wealthy sponsors pay for... If you dislike "commercials" now, the stuff loaded with propaganda and/or product-placements will be completely intolerable. Quality movies will cease to exist and even quality books will be harder to come by, because authors — unable to live off their creations — would need to be independently wealthy to be able to write them.

The effects will not be limited to entertainment — all things, that are hard to design, but easy to reproduce (like fashion design, for example) will similarly suffer.

(This is, largely, how the world used to be, BTW, before "Intellectual Property" was invented — little choices, literature glorifying the leader-of-the-day, and quality music available only to the upper crusts of society able to pay for live performers.)

Similarly, the scientific progress will suffer as scientists-employing firms will not be able to sell the patents and will have to be parts of conglomerates able to not only devise new things, but produce stuff using the inventions. As China's explosion attests, manufacturing is a "solved problem" — a reasonably modern factory can make anything, having the designs. And, as "3D-printers" like this take hold (and move beyond one-part-at-a-time), designs will matter more and more. And yet, the designers will be just as few and far between, as the above-mentioned composers and writers, unless the Intellectual Property concept survives...

Those who oppose the use of force are forever at the mercy of those who don't

George Orwell said it better: Those who "abjure" violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.

Like they say, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anatole_France

There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.

Robert Heinlein, Life-Line (1939)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein

It might not be his fault. For example, the quote "640K ought to be enough for anybody" is still widely misattributed to Bill Gates.

Check out his wikiquote for more.

Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.

Regressive? Maybe. He's making what seems to be a utilitarian argument against gay sex, not against homosexuality. I don't agree with this, but I can see where he's coming from.

But I must say, he makes a hell of a lot more sense than certain other religious leaders who shall not be named.

They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.

He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security.

He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.

People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.

If we restrict liberty to attain security we will lose them both.

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither.

Those who would trade in their freedom for their protection deserve neither.

Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security.

...because it cannot be said enough

"Militant atheist Sam Harris, according to "The End of Faith" apparently wants to see humanity exterminated, religious and atheist alike, rather than allow religion to continue to exist, which comes over as "nutjob" to me."

This is a lie! Please cite. I have read the book twice and nowhere in it does this lunacy appear. Nothing close. Sam Harris poured succinct insight into American religious discourse with that book. Please actually read it.

Some actual quotes (concepts he espouses) from Sam Harris are found here: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sam_Harris

"It is difficult to imagine a set of beliefs more suggestive of mental illness than those that lie at the heart of many of our religious traditions."

"Where we have reasons for what we believe, we have no need of faith; where we have no reasons, we have lost both our connection to the world and to one another."

"We must find our way to a time when faith, without evidence, disgraces anyone who would claim it."

"It is imperative that we begin speaking plainly about the absurdity of most of our religious beliefs."

"We have Christians against Muslims against Jews. They're making incompatible claims on real estate in the Middle East as though God were some kind of omniscient real estate broker parsing out parcels of land to his chosen flock. People are literally dying over ancient literature."

"Mormonism, it seems to me, is--objectively--just a little more idiotic than Christianity is. It has to be: because it is Christianity plus some very stupid ideas."

"I've read the books. God is not a moderate. There's no place in the books where God says, 'You know, when you get to the New World and you develop your three branches of government and you have a civil society, you can just jettison all the barbarism I recommended in the first books.'"

"Only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution; 68 percent believe in Satan."

"If Jesus does come down out of the clouds like a superhero, Christianity will stand revealed as a science. That will be the science of Christianity."

DIGITIG, YOU HAVE DELIBERATELY LIED TO THE READERS.

...two legs better.

Actually, all democratic countries by definition have a built-in, perfectly legal mechanism for overthrowing the government. It is also legal to urge people to use it; in fact, in many such countries, you can even get tax money to help you spread this message.

It's called "voting".

You'd be surprised, but a lot of democratic countries would not allow you to vote for a party that preaches dismantling of democracy - in fact, such a party would itself immediately be declared illegal. Germany is a good example of that - Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany:

Article 18:

"Whoever abuses freedom of opinion, in particular freedom of the press (Article 5, paragraph 1) freedom of teaching (Article 5, paragraph 3), freedom of assembly (Article 8), freedom of association (Article 9), the secrecy of mail posts and telecommunications (Article 10),property (Article 14), or the right of asylum (Article 16, paragraph 2) in order to attack the free democratic basic order, forfeits these basic rights. The forfeiture and its extent are pronounced by the Federal Constitutional Court."

Article 21:

"Parties which, by reason of their aims or the behavior of their adherents, seek or impair or destroy the free democratic basic order or to endanger the existence of the Federal Republic of Germany shall be unconstitutional. The Federal Constitutional Court decides on the question of unconstitutionality."

Also see the related concept of militant democracy.

I do not wish to discuss further why such restrictions are a good and necessary thing to preserve the freedom that we enjoy in the long term. If you wish to see more in-depth arguments, you should read "The Open Society and Its Enemies" by Karl Popper. Or, at least, look at some of the quotations from it here - look at the one about the "paradox of tolerance" in particular.

Not anonymous; it was said by the psychologist Abraham Maslow.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Thomson,_1st_Baron_Kelvin

I think there's a good chance it's a lie. Hard to say, though.

They say that one of the benefits, if not an outright goal, of some Linux distributions is to be a great platform to develop software on.

At one time Linux looked downright competitive as a platform (if certainly not market,) so what happended since 2002?

I do think one thing that would help is for OSS games to have much better tools. Make it easy for people to add assets, build levels and so on. Maybe more people would be willing to do so.

Well, games are not just software. The software is simply there to make the game go.

Perhaps the reason that there are so few (or in some opinions no) good games on Linux is that for developing games, Linux sucks?

Perhaps it is time to admit that OpenGL is a not the only kid on the block and start providing another popular API that other developers want to use?

Perhaps it is time to stop throwing away all that boatload of artwork with each release and start saving anything under a usable license to an appropriate gathering spot?

Perhaps it is time to put down that cumulative-xml2pd-custom-package-colored-pretty-printer patch and answer some basic questions in such a way that new people don't hate us?

What happened to those Open Source game engines that were going to let you MOD your way for WoW 2.0? Perhaps they are still there, waiting for content.

Perhaps what Linux Gaming needs is a little less CompSci and a little more Bachelors of Arts?

Hal Abelson said something similar: "Applicants must also have extensive knowledge of Unix, although they should have sufficiently good programming taste to not consider this an achievement."

Maybe you should read the quote in context:

The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.

It's fairly clear that Keynes wasn't arguing in favor of exclusively short-term thinking. He was arguing that even though one might expect the economy to eventually recover on its own, government should still intervene in the present.

"Sweet photons. I don't know if you're waves or particles, but you go down smooth!"

(citation)

640K ought to be enough for anybody. - Bill Gates, 1981

As much as I would just LOVE to defend ole Bill, no one can prove that he actually said this at any one point in time. Is just a nerd urban legend. Unless someone has proof?

Check out the 'misattributed' section for him here:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates

*sigh* Something tells me I'm gonna be modded to hell.

In the words of Thomas Jefferson: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have"

Actually, that was Gerald Ford. Not saying whether that's meaningful or not, that's up to you, but I figured it was worth mentioning.

In the words of Thomas Jefferson: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have"

I like that quote, but have never heard it before. It didn't quite ring right for Jefferson, so I dug. According to WikiQuote, it's actually from Gerald Ford's address to Congress in August, 1974.

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -George Orwell

"...allegedly said by George Orwell although there is no evidence that Orwell ever wrote or uttered either of these versions of this idea."

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." -George Orwell

Not to be pedantic (well, OK, it's thoroughly pedantic, but I'll point it out anyway), but there's no evidence that Orwell ever actually said this. I see this quote all the time, but it's never sourced or dated. More info here. (And yes, I'm aware of the irony of pointing to wikiquote to debunk a quotation that's not sourced. I think the burden of proof is probably on the person attributing the quote, though.)

That said, misquote or not, I agree with the sentiment 100%.

"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
-- Pablo Picasso (unsourced)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Picasso

So you're equating Microsoft to a psychotherapist and Mozilla to your mom....

Have you discussed this with the rapist?

Should be:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!

-- Upton Sinclair.

"All models are wrong, but some are useful" - George Box http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_E._P._Box

Liberty comes with risks, and they only way to negate the risks is to give up liberty. That's what these cameras are doing, in my opinion.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

Or to put it another way:
Any sacrifice of liberty comes with an automatic sacrifice of security.

The idea that you can be more secure by giving up liberty is crazy. If you disagree, rewind 20 years and have a look at the cold-war surveillance societies. Stasi would be a nice place to start.

Perhaps, they are so different that they are also looking for life but with an entirely different definition.

Yes, I've thought about that as well. Maybe they don't understand the concept of curiosity? They may be like birds on an island, communicating happily (and intelligibly) among themselves, but as they're doing well, they don't feel the need to move.

Maybe the have evolved into one single consciousness, so that communication and the concept of other entities has become entirely strange to them/it.

It might well be something along the lines of "I have no doubt that in reality the future will be vastly more surprising than anything I can imagine. Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." (J. B. S. Haldane)

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Andromeda#.22Fear_and_Loathing_in_the_Milky_Way.22

Gerentex: [to Trance] Aren't you dead?
Trance: I got better.
Gerentex: Huh. Lucky you.

Is that line really from Monty Python? I can't recall it from the few movies/shows I've seen.

wikiquote entry on Bill Gates, FWIW

Quotes that are food-for-thought; these are part of "the other side" - I find it interesting that they come form highly respected & highly ranked US military men of the era

"Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ... During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude... "
-General Dwight D. Eisenhower
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dwight_Eisenhower#Post presidency

The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into war. ... The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan.

        * Public statement quoted in The New York Times (6 October 1945)
Chester Nimitz
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chester_Nimitz

Quotes that are food-for-thought; these are part of "the other side" - I find it interesting that they come form highly respected & highly ranked US military men of the era

"Secretary of War Stimson, visiting my headquarters in Germany, informed me that our government was preparing to drop an atomic bomb on Japan. I was one of those who felt that there were a number of cogent reasons to question the wisdom of such an act. ... During his recitation of the relevant facts, I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of 'face'. The Secretary was deeply perturbed by my attitude... "
-General Dwight D. Eisenhower
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dwight_Eisenhower#Post presidency

The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into war. ... The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan.

        * Public statement quoted in The New York Times (6 October 1945)
Chester Nimitz
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chester_Nimitz

It's based on a Groucho Marx quote, which in turn is derived from John Galsworthy

Oh come on, how is this a Troll? Those are the ingenious words of Mel Brooks!

People usually don't sign up for Open Source or Free Software. They just do stuff, put it out there and let other people use it. To quote one Mr. Torvalds, real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it.

I have customer service skills godddammnit! Anyway, I'd hope to be able to help. Like I said, where do I sign up? Is it with Canonical, or is there a generic "Linux" marketing effort someplace?

Have you thought about starting a blog?

How about taking an active part in one or more major distribution's forum?

• http://fedoraforum.org/
• http://forums.opensuse.org/
• http://ubuntuforums.org/
• http://forums.gentoo.org/

Just publishing (in a reusable format under a nice CC License)

• market research
• technical business direction
• explainations of what is possible to the business types
• what you (as a marketing professional) learn from techies

If your work is of high quality, it would make an impact.

...by stupidity.

I think Hanlon's Razor applies here. Many people here on Slashdot like to put on a tinfoil hat and shout "AstroTurfing" for almost anything. I'm harder to convince of that.

I'll put aside what many have pointed out here, that the film in question has already been released in places.

NPR had an interview a month or so ago with David Edelstein, a film critic who happened to be the first to go public with a negative review for Dark Knight. In other words, he was the one responsible for first knocking it down from a 100% rating on metacritic and similar meta-rating sites.

In the interview he said he regretted having been first because of the backlash he received, but that he stood by his rating.

He also went on to point out the deluge of emails he received from angry fans. Many of whom would go on to criticize him at length while prefacing the email with "I haven't actually seen the film yet, but..."

Fanboys are rabid. They defend movies, hardware, software, etc, often sight unseen, because they want their horse to win. Even if they don't actually know what it looks like.

In this case, the movie is based on a book. I don't doubt that many of the votes on NetFlix are folks who have rated the film sight unseen, because they WANT to like it. They're jazzed about it, and they want it to be rated highly.

Will they sell HHD DVVDD BVDs there?

It looks like you didn't learn you AA, BB, CC's, god god dammit dammit.
--Mitch Hedberg

Controversy and the games industry go hand-in hand like Ico and Yorda, if you'll forgive the incredibly nerdy analogy. And like Yorda, the controversy tends to stay focused for an average of about eight nanoseconds before getting bored and drifting off to do something else. But when it does get focused it can get very exasperating, such as when youthful paragons of self-control are called nasty names and decide that murder would be the wittiest comeback, and then is found to have stood next to a videogame sometime in the past. Then the media generally start drooling the usual uninformed questions as to whether wholesome, boyish pretend violence has any correlation with the real world. Short answer: No. Long answer: No, and go fuck yourselves, you ignorant, scaremongering cockbags. [Text in review: No, and I consider your argument misinformed.]

Source -- Transcription

That's from the Declaration of Independence, smart guy. And the Declaration of Independence doesn't have any legal standing.

Our society's values have never been based on the notion of equality for everyone. Ever. They have been based on the equality of potential, if anything at all.

And, of course, a human being has no natural rights of any nature.

You're taking it as a given that those missing emails got trashed on purpose. But this is the kind of IT screwup that happens every day. Innocent until proven guilty, yada yada. Like so many things that have happened in the last eight years, that episode deserves to be observed with Hanlon's Razor in mind. Really, GWB is the poster child for that principle.

I admit that the Bush administration has a pretty bad record when it comes to obeying the law. But their usual strategy is to hide behind weird legal theories that don't stand up in court (an outcome that any sane lawyer would predict). They're simply not competent enough to succeed at the kind of conspiratorial skullduggery you give them credit for.

Controversy and the games industry go hand-in hand like Ico and Yorda, if you'll forgive the incredibly nerdy analogy. And like Yorda, the controversy tends to stay focused for an average of about eight nanoseconds before getting bored and drifting off to do something else. But when it does get focused it can get very exasperating, such as when youthful paragons of self-control are called nasty names and decide that murder would be the wittiest comeback, and then is found to have stood next to a videogame sometime in the past. Then the media generally start drooling the usual uninformed questions as to whether wholesome, boyish pretend violence has any correlation with the real world. Short answer: No. Long answer: No, and go fuck yourselves, you ignorant, scaremongering cockbags. [Text in review: No, and I consider your argument misinformed.]

Source -- Transcription

You sir, deserve neither liberty NOR safety.

Swimming pool deaths outnumber firearm death in children. Plenty of sources. Sooo..by all means, lets close them all down.

Shit, you weren't using your liberty anyways...

Would it be physically impossible to be stabbed with a non-pointy kitchen knife? Does that sound somehow better?

Obligatory paprika

e whirlwind of recycled paper was a sight to see. It was like computer graphics. That I don't support Technicolor parfaits and snobby petit bourgeois is common knowledge in Oceania! Now is the time to return home to the blue sky! The confetti will dance around the shrine gates. The mailbox and the refrigerator will lead the way! Anyone who cares about expiration dates will not get in the way of the glory train! They need to fully realize the liver of the triangle rulers! Now, this festival was decided by the third grade class with the telephoto camera! Move forward! Come together! I am the ultimate governor!

I'd rather lose some freedoms than die in a nuclear fireball, or live in perpetual misery in the Dhimmitude of an Islamic theocracy.

It's easy for you to pontificate, sitting in a country surrounded by well-wishing allies.

It was said best by Benjamin Franklin "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." And as he wrote this line in early 1775, just prior to the revolutionary war, I doubt he was sitting safely surrounded by well-wishing allies.

See Sugar Watkins
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers_(film)

Out of all the computers in the world, the one I'm typing on happens to be the one called "mine." I think you're making the error of assuming that there actually needs to be a reason beyond the fact that everything that has gone before has led to the way things are now.

That reminds me of something from Douglas Adams: ". . . imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for. " (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams)

The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.

        * Ralph Manheim translation (1943), Page 403

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/My_Struggle

It's wikiquote, but it sounds fairly legit to me.