We are in a position as up and coming professionals to let our grievances be known. Our opposition to this bill as students and soon-to-be professionals cannot be dismissed as opposition for a bunch of leftist university hacks because we'll be affected by this!
So that means.....
Call your Senator's office and tell them that you are calling on behalf of yourself and your family. Tell them that you and your family have supported the Senator in the past and hope to be able to do so again in the future, but that this bill will determine how you vote because you feel that this bill would cripple the industry you hope to work in.
Then:
Fax your Senator's office and say the following as it will have far more weight with the staffers than just geee I don't like this bill:
"As a Computer Science major I am deeply worried about this legislation. Based on the text of this bill I have no reason to believe that it won't have far reaching detrimental effects on the industry I plan to work for."
"In the past I have considered INSERT_SENATOR_HERE to be a man/woman worthy of my support but this issue is critical to my future and this bill and others like it ***WILL*** determine how I vote. I cannot support a politician that supports a bill that will damage my ability to seek gainful employment in my field of choice."
"Therefore I urge you to inform the Senator that this issue is of the utmost importance to myself and many other Computer Science majors at INSERT_UNIVERSITY_HERE. Thank you for your time."
Obviously that is only the general gist of the letter. The idea here is that you tell them you're a CS major. Tell them that you like the Senator even if you don't. Tell them that you oppose this bill and cannot support a politician that supports it. Tell them you aren't alone but don't make it out like you speak for everyone, just let them know that while you don't represent everyone that there are a lot of people that feel the way you do even if they don't explicitly say so. Then tell them that you hope that the Senator will be informed of where his/her constituents stand and that they will take their constituents interests into the highest consideration.
is that our country was founded on liberalism, a belief in a transcendetal natural law. Liberal notions of rights mean that you cannot use your rights in a way that is detrimental to another's rights. Therefore she has no right to tell me how I can use it anymore than I have a right to tell her how she can use the hardware I sold her which she used to develop it on. The only exception to this is open source because open source contracts require both parties to respect each other's rights.
A single nuclear attack would destabilize his regime by ruining his public support. It's one thing for him to say, "look they're starving you," but it is another for him to try to explain "we didn't do anything to justify a NUCLEAR attack on our country" to his people. Nuke strikes aren't a small matter. To push a nation to launch a nuclear strike against another means that chances are, the nuked country's government did something ****VERY**** bad to bring that on. Anyone with >=80 IQ and possessing even a degree of sanity knows that. He'd be left with a nation full of people seeking revenge not against us, but him for bringing that on them
and that is probably the real reason why people bootleg less (bootleg, not pirate please). If I can go out and buy a full copy of Dreamweaver 4 that won't die after a year for only $100, that's incentive for me to buy a copy when I get the money. I'm a CS major so the same goes for Visual Studio (I'm more of a Java/Python geek, but knowing how to code for another platform is never a bad thing!)
The one thing I don't think that major software developers have taken into consideration is that if they would drop their prices even lower for students, remove all copy restrictions and make them perform like the real deal then almost no one would bootleg. If a student could get a full copy of Office XP pro w/out product activation for =$100 at their university bookstore they'd have little reason to bootleg. In fact if I could get a full copy of Dreamweaver 4 (my favorite web page editor) for $50 I'd go out to the JMU bookstore and buy a copy right now. And I know I'm not alone.
Side note to any entertainment industry drones in the audience: if I could buy a music CD for $5 plus shipping and handling or a DVD for $7.5-$8 plus S&H from your company website I'd be buying every week. That's how you make money in this day and age.
Why not pass a law called the "Anti-uncool-kid preppy social clique protection act" instead? That would go a lot further in protecting the at risk kids' sanity.
#1 the number one "victim" category for gun violence are criminals. Most gun crime is criminal-on-criminal. If my memory serves over half of the "victims" every year fall in this category
#2, only around 1,500-2,500 kids die every year from any type of gun violence. In any given year at least 2x that are killed by drunk drivers.
#3 on average around 40-50,000 people die in car accidents. Why not ban cars since you have no right at all to own or use them under state law and since public transportation is so much "safer"
Go ahead and ban guns and let's see who will not have them:
1. single mothers with small children living in the inner cities. You know... those areas where the cops can't be bothered to enforce the law because they don't have the balls to do it.
2. farmers living out in the countryside where it would take a hell of a long time to get a cop out to help them.
3. the elderly. Do you honestly think that without a gun that an elderly man or woman has even a shot of defending themselves against a violent offender?
It takes at least 15-20 minutes in most areas for a cop to respond to a call. key words: at least. Yes that means that while someone is breaking down your door with an intent on robbing you, raping you or murdering you or any combination of the above, you have no means without a gun to defend yourself against them. Do you honestly think they aren't armed? Yes, there is a chance you'll die, but there is also a chance you'll die from a heart attack the moment you wake up or get hit by a car on the way to work. You won't reduce the violent crime rate in THIS country by restricting access to guns because there are too many well-armed criminals already. Only their would-be victims will surrender their guns. You need to grow up and realize that the government cannot bring about a crime-free utopia. It's life, it isn't perfect and it won't conform to your petty legislation.
I personally have found XP to be better than Win2k as a desktop, but only if you are using the cracked version of XP. If not then upgrading is simply not worth it unless you can get your hands on a recovery disk for a computer that will install on your PC.
Personally I consider MP3 itself to be a loser. It is owned and controlled by a cartel (Fraunhaugher and Thomson Multimedia) and people have to pay out their asses to use it. That is what prompted me to take a moral stance and rerip my entire ~160 cd collection into Ogg Vorbis (350k!). And yes, I know about the threats made against the Ogg project by Thomson......
Seriously folks.... why are so many people still using MP3? It can't hold a candle to Ogg Vorbis or even Windows Media. It isn't open, it doesn't sound nearly as good as it has been hyped to, it produces files that are much bigger than an equivalent Ogg or WMA and well..... it's just lame now.
Here's an example of what I mean if you don't believe me:
I have a 350k Ogg of Prisoner of Society by The Living End that takes up 9.07mb on my hdd and the same song as a 320k MP3 takes up 10.5mb!
Simple question: how do you regulate what they can do with Windows without hurting their theoretical ability to innovate? Sure they haven't done much innovative work, ever, but who is to say that some new worker won't have a good idea that IS innovative that would get added, but regulation stops it?
I'm interested in getting started with a BSD, but which one I should use I don't know. I'm not that afraid of having to configure hardware myself, but I'd prefer something that makes a reasonable attempt to do that for me.
So.....
1. Which is the easiest/best to get started with?
2. Which has the best documentation
3. Do any of them have compatability with Linux configuration tools like Kudzu and HardDrake?
4. Which one supports the most x86 hardware
Would it be possible to spread a worm that all it does is hack IE to make that change? Imagine what could be done if the user agent was set to something like "MONOPOLIES_SUCK_MORE_COCK_THAN_A_WHORE_HOUSE_WITH _A_TWO_FOR_ONE_SPECIAL"
I used XP on my desktop for about a week and if you want windows, don't need to boot a non-MS OS then it is the way to go... if you're used to NT/2k. I noticed that setting permissions for multiple users is actually significantly harder to figure how to do than it is in 2k. In 2k you just right click on something and click properties. In XP you have to first enable some obscure option to be able to do that and of course there is nothing in the helpfile to tell you what to do, you have to figure it out on your own
Why would consumers want to replace the cd technology to begin with. It offers very high quality sound on consumer systems, is easy to maintain, has no restrictions on its use in its current specification and is practically universal now.
The only think I see replacing CDs would be some sort of DVD. Ultimately I don't think consumers will latch on to any replacement technology unless it offers the same flexibility that they've come to expect from cds.
Why is it that elected idiots with law degrees are the ones that do "fact finding" for the government? Wouldn't it be easier to make good decisions that will get respect and not create strife by having experts in a field make the suggestions only?
Usual comments about them not caring don't necessarily apply. Any good congresscritter wants respect and very bad proposal like this certainly does not engender such a sentiment in our country among the electorate
Swat team size on average: I believe around 10-15 people? Put that up against a mob of 5-10 thousand armed civilians and there won't even be a fire fight. Our governments don't have nearly enough military power to fight against the gun owners in this country if they get pissed.
As for the argument that tanks, jets, etc could massacre those rising up against the state: all such things require fuel and bases of operation. If 50,000 civilians in a mob (not inconceivable in a state even as small as mine, Virginia) rush onto a military base each armed with a few hundred rounds of ammo and pistols, shotguns and rifles then those things would be worthless. What good is a tank that gets a few dozen sticks of dynamite thrown underneath it? What good is a jet that has had its pilot shot by a civilian sniper as he takes off (and a lot of long-time hunters could do that)?
And of course you aren't even taking into consideration the distinct possibility of a military uprising as well if the civilian population started one. At that point it wouldn't be swat vs civilians, it would be swat vs navy seals/army rangers.
On the issue of encryption Goodlatte is usually right on target. He has been vehemently oppose to laws which would limit its accessability to average Americans. However on other issues he is a total nut in my opinion. He is staunchly pro-DMCA and is proud that he took a part in its creation.
Yet as a Virginian I'm ashamed that someone from my state played a role in the creation of such an anti-American bill. Give the man kudos for defending crypto in Congress at a time like this, but don't think that he is a freedom-loving politician. He said at my high school (I'm a freshman in college now) that if he had it his way he'd abolish our lottery because there are "better uses" for people's money than a lottery. $1-$5 a week for the hope of striking it big is a bad thing? $1-$5 a week invested in further funding our state's infrastructure is a bad thing? $1-$5 more invested in an education system which is #7 in the nation in passing the AP tests is a bad thing? And finally $1-$5 a week invested in the same education system that has one of the highest passage rates in the nation on some of the most rigorous standardized tests in the nation?
Now is the time for us to be holding our republican values (and I don't mean the party) more dearly than ever. The purpose of establishing a republic and not a new monarchy for our people was to break the cycle of tyranny. Let's remember what happened to the Roman Republic. By the same token, let's learn from the lessons of the past so the American Republic doesn't go the same way.
Get your state to pass a law voiding such contracts. Microsoft relies on contract law, a state legal system. If the state code says: "The liberties established in the US Constitution shall apply in all contractual relationships; no party shall abridge or void these rights. Any contract which does the preceding shall be invalid. In the event of intellectual property contracts violating this statute, the intellectual property shall be covered under the sections of the state code regarding sale of non-intellectual property to consumers and the property shall be regarded as a physical commodity bought and sold rather than a good licensed or leased." then there is nothing MSFT can do about it.
Explain to them that the law is stupid because byte-for-byte copying is unpreventable when you have the real production equipment. Explain to them that Adobe used encryption that was so sad that an Algebra student in high school could probably write a better algorithm to protect the eBooks with. Explain to them that there cannot legally be a DVD equivelant of the VCR. Show them that what Sklyarov did was legal in his country, the jurisidiction where it took place. Then remind them that this is the exact same thing that China does to our people when they criticize their policies in America them then go on business trips there. Put it in those terms. That will show them that we have become the very thing we once deeply opposed: a police state. If the facts are explained to them in those simple terms then Adobe/the gov's lawyers will have two words haunting them in their back of their minds for the duration of the trial: "jury nullification"
Instead of blaming the corporations that exploit the workers, ask yourselves why the governments in the host countries like the Congo don't have any labor standards. Then ask yourself just how often are the governments in countries like the Congo actually willfully allowing stuff like this to happen. We import from China all the time because we have anti-robotics culture that would go nucking futz if many of our manufacturers used mostly robots on their assembly lines because that would "cost jobs." The reality is that we can't have both cheap goods and high standards in the lowest of the low jobs in industrial manufacturing. The only way in most cases to eliminate the need for cheap labor is to use robotics and of course the luddites in society (the majority of society?) are vehemently opposed to using robots for production even though it would often give us a freer society and cheaper goods and services.
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We are in a position as up and coming professionals to let our grievances be known. Our opposition to this bill as students and soon-to-be professionals cannot be dismissed as opposition for a bunch of leftist university hacks because we'll be affected by this!
So that means.....
Call your Senator's office and tell them that you are calling on behalf of yourself and your family. Tell them that you and your family have supported the Senator in the past and hope to be able to do so again in the future, but that this bill will determine how you vote because you feel that this bill would cripple the industry you hope to work in.
Then:
Fax your Senator's office and say the following as it will have far more weight with the staffers than just geee I don't like this bill:
"As a Computer Science major I am deeply worried about this legislation. Based on the text of this bill I have no reason to believe that it won't have far reaching detrimental effects on the industry I plan to work for."
"In the past I have considered INSERT_SENATOR_HERE to be a man/woman worthy of my support but this issue is critical to my future and this bill and others like it ***WILL*** determine how I vote. I cannot support a politician that supports a bill that will damage my ability to seek gainful employment in my field of choice."
"Therefore I urge you to inform the Senator that this issue is of the utmost importance to myself and many other Computer Science majors at INSERT_UNIVERSITY_HERE. Thank you for your time."
Obviously that is only the general gist of the letter. The idea here is that you tell them you're a CS major. Tell them that you like the Senator even if you don't. Tell them that you oppose this bill and cannot support a politician that supports it. Tell them you aren't alone but don't make it out like you speak for everyone, just let them know that while you don't represent everyone that there are a lot of people that feel the way you do even if they don't explicitly say so. Then tell them that you hope that the Senator will be informed of where his/her constituents stand and that they will take their constituents interests into the highest consideration.
is that our country was founded on liberalism, a belief in a transcendetal natural law. Liberal notions of rights mean that you cannot use your rights in a way that is detrimental to another's rights. Therefore she has no right to tell me how I can use it anymore than I have a right to tell her how she can use the hardware I sold her which she used to develop it on. The only exception to this is open source because open source contracts require both parties to respect each other's rights.
how do you make sure that the other guys are really destroying their nukes?
A single nuclear attack would destabilize his regime by ruining his public support. It's one thing for him to say, "look they're starving you," but it is another for him to try to explain "we didn't do anything to justify a NUCLEAR attack on our country" to his people. Nuke strikes aren't a small matter. To push a nation to launch a nuclear strike against another means that chances are, the nuked country's government did something ****VERY**** bad to bring that on. Anyone with >=80 IQ and possessing even a degree of sanity knows that. He'd be left with a nation full of people seeking revenge not against us, but him for bringing that on them
and that is probably the real reason why people bootleg less (bootleg, not pirate please). If I can go out and buy a full copy of Dreamweaver 4 that won't die after a year for only $100, that's incentive for me to buy a copy when I get the money. I'm a CS major so the same goes for Visual Studio (I'm more of a Java/Python geek, but knowing how to code for another platform is never a bad thing!)
The one thing I don't think that major software developers have taken into consideration is that if they would drop their prices even lower for students, remove all copy restrictions and make them perform like the real deal then almost no one would bootleg. If a student could get a full copy of Office XP pro w/out product activation for =$100 at their university bookstore they'd have little reason to bootleg. In fact if I could get a full copy of Dreamweaver 4 (my favorite web page editor) for $50 I'd go out to the JMU bookstore and buy a copy right now. And I know I'm not alone.
Side note to any entertainment industry drones in the audience: if I could buy a music CD for $5 plus shipping and handling or a DVD for $7.5-$8 plus S&H from your company website I'd be buying every week. That's how you make money in this day and age.
and buy a PowerMac, PowerBook or new iMac in the event that they get sued. That would be probably more effective than any Amicus Curae brief.
Why not have a two phase copyright system as follows:
phase 1: full monopoly on terms of distribution and reaping of profits. Lasts 50-60 years for a corporation and 70 years to life for an individual.
phase 2: full credit for the creation must still be given to the creator when distributed, but no monopoly on distribution exists anymore
Why not pass a law called the "Anti-uncool-kid preppy social clique protection act" instead? That would go a lot further in protecting the at risk kids' sanity.
Well yes you are right but.....
#1 the number one "victim" category for gun violence are criminals. Most gun crime is criminal-on-criminal. If my memory serves over half of the "victims" every year fall in this category
#2, only around 1,500-2,500 kids die every year from any type of gun violence. In any given year at least 2x that are killed by drunk drivers.
#3 on average around 40-50,000 people die in car accidents. Why not ban cars since you have no right at all to own or use them under state law and since public transportation is so much "safer"
Go ahead and ban guns and let's see who will not have them:
1. single mothers with small children living in the inner cities. You know... those areas where the cops can't be bothered to enforce the law because they don't have the balls to do it.
2. farmers living out in the countryside where it would take a hell of a long time to get a cop out to help them.
3. the elderly. Do you honestly think that without a gun that an elderly man or woman has even a shot of defending themselves against a violent offender?
It takes at least 15-20 minutes in most areas for a cop to respond to a call. key words: at least. Yes that means that while someone is breaking down your door with an intent on robbing you, raping you or murdering you or any combination of the above, you have no means without a gun to defend yourself against them. Do you honestly think they aren't armed? Yes, there is a chance you'll die, but there is also a chance you'll die from a heart attack the moment you wake up or get hit by a car on the way to work. You won't reduce the violent crime rate in THIS country by restricting access to guns because there are too many well-armed criminals already. Only their would-be victims will surrender their guns. You need to grow up and realize that the government cannot bring about a crime-free utopia. It's life, it isn't perfect and it won't conform to your petty legislation.
I personally have found XP to be better than Win2k as a desktop, but only if you are using the cracked version of XP. If not then upgrading is simply not worth it unless you can get your hands on a recovery disk for a computer that will install on your PC.
Personally I consider MP3 itself to be a loser. It is owned and controlled by a cartel (Fraunhaugher and Thomson Multimedia) and people have to pay out their asses to use it. That is what prompted me to take a moral stance and rerip my entire ~160 cd collection into Ogg Vorbis (350k!). And yes, I know about the threats made against the Ogg project by Thomson......
Seriously folks.... why are so many people still using MP3? It can't hold a candle to Ogg Vorbis or even Windows Media. It isn't open, it doesn't sound nearly as good as it has been hyped to, it produces files that are much bigger than an equivalent Ogg or WMA and well..... it's just lame now.
Here's an example of what I mean if you don't believe me:
I have a 350k Ogg of Prisoner of Society by The Living End that takes up 9.07mb on my hdd and the same song as a 320k MP3 takes up 10.5mb!
Simple question: how do you regulate what they can do with Windows without hurting their theoretical ability to innovate? Sure they haven't done much innovative work, ever, but who is to say that some new worker won't have a good idea that IS innovative that would get added, but regulation stops it?
I'm interested in getting started with a BSD, but which one I should use I don't know. I'm not that afraid of having to configure hardware myself, but I'd prefer something that makes a reasonable attempt to do that for me.
So.....
1. Which is the easiest/best to get started with?
2. Which has the best documentation
3. Do any of them have compatability with Linux configuration tools like Kudzu and HardDrake?
4. Which one supports the most x86 hardware
Would it be possible to spread a worm that all it does is hack IE to make that change? Imagine what could be done if the user agent was set to something like "MONOPOLIES_SUCK_MORE_COCK_THAN_A_WHORE_HOUSE_WITH _A_TWO_FOR_ONE_SPECIAL"
I used XP on my desktop for about a week and if you want windows, don't need to boot a non-MS OS then it is the way to go... if you're used to NT/2k. I noticed that setting permissions for multiple users is actually significantly harder to figure how to do than it is in 2k. In 2k you just right click on something and click properties. In XP you have to first enable some obscure option to be able to do that and of course there is nothing in the helpfile to tell you what to do, you have to figure it out on your own
or has Katz over the past 1-2 years undertaken a 180 degree shift away from his original very pro-technology, new media, geek views?
great, they can IM each other instead of passing notes to each other when the teacher isn't looking
Why would consumers want to replace the cd technology to begin with. It offers very high quality sound on consumer systems, is easy to maintain, has no restrictions on its use in its current specification and is practically universal now.
The only think I see replacing CDs would be some sort of DVD. Ultimately I don't think consumers will latch on to any replacement technology unless it offers the same flexibility that they've come to expect from cds.
Why is it that elected idiots with law degrees are the ones that do "fact finding" for the government? Wouldn't it be easier to make good decisions that will get respect and not create strife by having experts in a field make the suggestions only?
Usual comments about them not caring don't necessarily apply. Any good congresscritter wants respect and very bad proposal like this certainly does not engender such a sentiment in our country among the electorate
Swat team size on average: I believe around 10-15 people? Put that up against a mob of 5-10 thousand armed civilians and there won't even be a fire fight. Our governments don't have nearly enough military power to fight against the gun owners in this country if they get pissed.
As for the argument that tanks, jets, etc could massacre those rising up against the state: all such things require fuel and bases of operation. If 50,000 civilians in a mob (not inconceivable in a state even as small as mine, Virginia) rush onto a military base each armed with a few hundred rounds of ammo and pistols, shotguns and rifles then those things would be worthless. What good is a tank that gets a few dozen sticks of dynamite thrown underneath it? What good is a jet that has had its pilot shot by a civilian sniper as he takes off (and a lot of long-time hunters could do that)?
And of course you aren't even taking into consideration the distinct possibility of a military uprising as well if the civilian population started one. At that point it wouldn't be swat vs civilians, it would be swat vs navy seals/army rangers.
Nationalize Oracle without paying a dime to Larryboy and give away Oracle for free
On the issue of encryption Goodlatte is usually right on target. He has been vehemently oppose to laws which would limit its accessability to average Americans. However on other issues he is a total nut in my opinion. He is staunchly pro-DMCA and is proud that he took a part in its creation.
Yet as a Virginian I'm ashamed that someone from my state played a role in the creation of such an anti-American bill. Give the man kudos for defending crypto in Congress at a time like this, but don't think that he is a freedom-loving politician. He said at my high school (I'm a freshman in college now) that if he had it his way he'd abolish our lottery because there are "better uses" for people's money than a lottery. $1-$5 a week for the hope of striking it big is a bad thing? $1-$5 a week invested in further funding our state's infrastructure is a bad thing? $1-$5 more invested in an education system which is #7 in the nation in passing the AP tests is a bad thing? And finally $1-$5 a week invested in the same education system that has one of the highest passage rates in the nation on some of the most rigorous standardized tests in the nation?
Now is the time for us to be holding our republican values (and I don't mean the party) more dearly than ever. The purpose of establishing a republic and not a new monarchy for our people was to break the cycle of tyranny. Let's remember what happened to the Roman Republic. By the same token, let's learn from the lessons of the past so the American Republic doesn't go the same way.
Get your state to pass a law voiding such contracts. Microsoft relies on contract law, a state legal system. If the state code says: "The liberties established in the US Constitution shall apply in all contractual relationships; no party shall abridge or void these rights. Any contract which does the preceding shall be invalid. In the event of intellectual property contracts violating this statute, the intellectual property shall be covered under the sections of the state code regarding sale of non-intellectual property to consumers and the property shall be regarded as a physical commodity bought and sold rather than a good licensed or leased." then there is nothing MSFT can do about it.
Explain to them that the law is stupid because byte-for-byte copying is unpreventable when you have the real production equipment. Explain to them that Adobe used encryption that was so sad that an Algebra student in high school could probably write a better algorithm to protect the eBooks with. Explain to them that there cannot legally be a DVD equivelant of the VCR. Show them that what Sklyarov did was legal in his country, the jurisidiction where it took place. Then remind them that this is the exact same thing that China does to our people when they criticize their policies in America them then go on business trips there. Put it in those terms. That will show them that we have become the very thing we once deeply opposed: a police state. If the facts are explained to them in those simple terms then Adobe/the gov's lawyers will have two words haunting them in their back of their minds for the duration of the trial: "jury nullification"
Instead of blaming the corporations that exploit the workers, ask yourselves why the governments in the host countries like the Congo don't have any labor standards. Then ask yourself just how often are the governments in countries like the Congo actually willfully allowing stuff like this to happen. We import from China all the time because we have anti-robotics culture that would go nucking futz if many of our manufacturers used mostly robots on their assembly lines because that would "cost jobs." The reality is that we can't have both cheap goods and high standards in the lowest of the low jobs in industrial manufacturing. The only way in most cases to eliminate the need for cheap labor is to use robotics and of course the luddites in society (the majority of society?) are vehemently opposed to using robots for production even though it would often give us a freer society and cheaper goods and services.