My question is simple: what's the difference between illegal gambling and state-sanctioned lotteries?
It's very simple, and any moron could readily figure it out:
Illegal gambling: profits go to criminals, who use it for their OWN advantage, and it usually ain't for the public good.
State lotteries: profits go to the states, who use it for EVERYBODY's advantage (think how much more taxes you'd have to pay if there weren't state lotteries) and it usually is for the public good.
The idea that the FBI can scan E-mails as they enter or leave your ISP sounds scary at first, but what you have to remember is that you are not a criminal. They're hardly going to want to read your E-mail about your trip to see your sister at BJU are they? It's not like there are people reading your personal mail, it's just a machine and can't make value Judgements on what you write.
So, if you're not afraid of the FBI looking at your e-mails to your sister, you're surely not afraid at letting ME look at those same e-mails, no?
By the same token, you won't mind either me looking at those e-mails you sent to that chick you met last month at Catalina, no?
Can't you see it's a matter of principle, or are you just dumed-down by mass-media hysteria not to realize your fundamental rights are being trampled???
Any culture who values children of one gender over the other
That's a low blow. Of course, by saying that, one does not stop at looking at the historical and cultural factors that made it so, say, like a "social" system that does not provides at all for the care of the elderly, so they have to rely on their children, and since women are poorer than men, well, better have a son rather than a daughter...
Now, how about saying "any social system where WOMEN are EXPECTED to be POORER than MEN?".
Ooops, you'd be shooting down a lot more "social" systems out there. Including your own.
The article talks about packet-sniffers who basically delay packets based ont the nature of the protocol (say, like port number used, or maybe even what is within that packet - "Hmmm, looks like a Napster packet, so, I'm gonna put it on the back-burner for a little while...").
So, the next logical step with Gnutella is to use an innocuous protocol, say, like SMTP, where two Gnutella-NG server/clients transfer the warez using SMTP... The program could even break the big file in several manageable chunks, and re-assemble them. It could also "encrypt" the packets with a simple randomly-generated packet at the start of the transmission (sent by another method) to fool packet sniffers/delayers...
Imagination will route through the most stringent censorship methods...
It was conquered in early 19th century, and I don't know what would be worse for it, the rule of Czarist Russia and later Communist USSR, or what it had before that -- some local customs were umm... extremely un-civilized and had really poor respect for human life, leave alone democracy.
Yeah? And what about the democratic/human rights situation in the early 19th century in the USA? Only landowners could vote, there was slavery...
the U.S. press is, perhaps unintentionally, one of the single most pervasive and irresponsible agents for foreign intelligence. They routinely violate people's civil rights by interfering with their right to a fair trial, they endanger national security by releasing classified information to the public, they interfere with ongoing investigations, and they place U.S. and U.N. soldiers and their missions in jeopardy by their aggressive reporting of active military operations.
Plus, think about it.. if everyone on Gnutella got subpoenas on their doorstep towmorrow for downloading copyrighted information, we would have even more popular support for the cause. The more people the RIAA piss off with these bully tactics, the better off we are.
Not only that, but imagine how the judicial system would react in front of the ensuing onslaught of litigation? After 5000 cases of "Plastika - vs - Joe-Blow-who-downloaded-the-latest-hit", judges will soon tell the RIAA to go screw itself pretty quick.
In other words, there is no longer any obstacle to directly debiting your bank account for whatever amount the government (state, city, federal) decides you owe them.
What's the difference between that, and retail stores THAT DEMAND that you leave your bags at the cash register, because they THINK that you MAY rob them????
When some storeowner pulls that stunt on me, I shout loudly in the store that I will not do business with people who automatically assume that I will rob them.
This is the same fucking thing in the private sectors. Managers are valued by how much people work under them, and heaven forbid they don't spend their whole budgets, lest they lose them next year.
The lines that Katz complains about aren't just there accidentally. They enforce discipline, respect, and fear. Fear of a wasted day, fear of an inexplicable fine, fear of a missing sheet of paper.
Interesting. I hang around some european diplomats, and they thus have tax-free status. This means that they have their sales tax refunded monthly. So, I asked one of them to buy an expensive item for me, to save the tax, and he said that I should'nt do that, because the civil servants here are much nicer than in [Europe] : " I once incorrecty filled a tax form, and the lady [not in Europe] at the counter nicely explained to me my mistake, and even filled the form for me and checked all the papers. In [Europe], I would have had a fine and would have to go to three different other queues, so I don't think it's fair to cheat the tax people here".
I bought my expensive item myself, and was happy to pay the tax.
To pay all I have to do is walk through a metal-detector thingy that picks up all of the price codes for everything I bought and automatically charges me.
Some french supermarkets have experimented with a caddy-mounted barcode scanner, which adds to the tab whatever you put in the cart and also subtracts whatever you take-out from it. When you pass at the cash, you merely pay the indicated price.
Dunno if the experiment was wildly successful beyond hopes, though...
You think that's bad, in my state they not only ake blood samples at birth without your consent, they also inject you with disease organisms throughout your childhood without your consent. As a matter of fact, they will do it even if you are protesting loudly while they do it!
Comeon, you're a grown-up boy, aren't you? Grown-up boys don't cry, eh? It's just a little pinprick, anyway.
They're probably racist enough to consider non-whites to be animals, and since pictures of naked animals are not considered pornographic, they don't care about that...
t's cultural, and an anglo-saxon/celtic trait which can be traced all the way back to the magna-carta.
The main idea is that anyone can expect to accummulate as much wealth/power possible, even if it is endangering the welfare of others. So, naturally, any government that steps in to protect people from abuse is bound to be branded as "intrusive" by those most powerful and wealthiest elements of society.
Witness big media and hollywood that has been hammering "government is bad" into the head of the people for decades, to the point that they will actively vote for scaling down the government, even it it means misery and hardship for them...
... especially if people regain control of the supership Titan, hidden away somewhere deep in the galaxy by Cale's dad.
Gosh, lord, here is the plot of the french comic series "Le vagabond des limbes", by Godard & Ribera. (Book cover shots here). In it, a renegade flees from authority in an invincible ship designed by his father. Interestingly, though, there is another duplicate of the ship in the hands of the authorities, but since both ships are invincible, none can dent the other.
Can't american scriptwriters invent something really original???
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It's very simple, and any moron could readily figure it out:
Any other questions?
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... And our Lord Jesus H. Fucking Christ spread his buns, and said: "Thou shalt not jaywalk, and always cross on thy green lights"... [Peter 89:45.12]
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So, if you're not afraid of the FBI looking at your e-mails to your sister, you're surely not afraid at letting ME look at those same e-mails, no?
By the same token, you won't mind either me looking at those e-mails you sent to that chick you met last month at Catalina, no?
Can't you see it's a matter of principle, or are you just dumed-down by mass-media hysteria not to realize your fundamental rights are being trampled???
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Here's my mirror
That's a low blow. Of course, by saying that, one does not stop at looking at the historical and cultural factors that made it so, say, like a "social" system that does not provides at all for the care of the elderly, so they have to rely on their children, and since women are poorer than men, well, better have a son rather than a daughter...
Now, how about saying "any social system where WOMEN are EXPECTED to be POORER than MEN?".
Ooops, you'd be shooting down a lot more "social" systems out there. Including your own.
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And sharing files, say, trough Napster certainly doesn't bring financial gain or commercial advantage, so it cannot be criminal in the US.
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- sigh -
The article talks about packet-sniffers who basically delay packets based ont the nature of the protocol (say, like port number used, or maybe even what is within that packet - "Hmmm, looks like a Napster packet, so, I'm gonna put it on the back-burner for a little while...").
So, the next logical step with Gnutella is to use an innocuous protocol, say, like SMTP, where two Gnutella-NG server/clients transfer the warez using SMTP... The program could even break the big file in several manageable chunks, and re-assemble them. It could also "encrypt" the packets with a simple randomly-generated packet at the start of the transmission (sent by another method) to fool packet sniffers/delayers...
Imagination will route through the most stringent censorship methods...
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And also, when one gets screwed, he won't readily admit it, so they grin and bear it.
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Yeah? And what about the democratic/human rights situation in the early 19th century in the USA? Only landowners could vote, there was slavery...
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That's because most of the unsuccessful-at-home people who want to immigrate to the US are the most vulnerable to hollywood's propaganda machine.
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Not only that, but imagine how the judicial system would react in front of the ensuing onslaught of litigation? After 5000 cases of "Plastika - vs - Joe-Blow-who-downloaded-the-latest-hit", judges will soon tell the RIAA to go screw itself pretty quick.
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What's the difference between that, and retail stores THAT DEMAND that you leave your bags at the cash register, because they THINK that you MAY rob them????
When some storeowner pulls that stunt on me, I shout loudly in the store that I will not do business with people who automatically assume that I will rob them.
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Here's my mirror
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Interesting. I hang around some european diplomats, and they thus have tax-free status. This means that they have their sales tax refunded monthly. So, I asked one of them to buy an expensive item for me, to save the tax, and he said that I should'nt do that, because the civil servants here are much nicer than in [Europe] : " I once incorrecty filled a tax form, and the lady [not in Europe] at the counter nicely explained to me my mistake, and even filled the form for me and checked all the papers. In [Europe], I would have had a fine and would have to go to three different other queues, so I don't think it's fair to cheat the tax people here ".
I bought my expensive item myself, and was happy to pay the tax.
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Here's my mirror
Some french supermarkets have experimented with a caddy-mounted barcode scanner, which adds to the tab whatever you put in the cart and also subtracts whatever you take-out from it. When you pass at the cash, you merely pay the indicated price.
Dunno if the experiment was wildly successful beyond hopes, though...
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Here's my mirror
Comeon, you're a grown-up boy, aren't you? Grown-up boys don't cry, eh? It's just a little pinprick, anyway.
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The main idea is that anyone can expect to accummulate as much wealth/power possible, even if it is endangering the welfare of others. So, naturally, any government that steps in to protect people from abuse is bound to be branded as "intrusive" by those most powerful and wealthiest elements of society.
Witness big media and hollywood that has been hammering "government is bad" into the head of the people for decades, to the point that they will actively vote for scaling down the government, even it it means misery and hardship for them...
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Here's my mirror
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Here's my mirror
Gosh, lord, here is the plot of the french comic series " Le vagabond des limbes ", by Godard & Ribera. (Book cover shots here). In it, a renegade flees from authority in an invincible ship designed by his father. Interestingly, though, there is another duplicate of the ship in the hands of the authorities, but since both ships are invincible, none can dent the other.
Can't american scriptwriters invent something really original???
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