...does admiteddly benefit many Americans - specifically those living off the ultra-corrupt industry that is law enforcement.
And don't forget about those who make their living smuggling or selling drugs, whose business depends on having enough heat to make the drugs valuable but not enough to keep them from selling them.
a threehundred thousand dollar car that has saws? what the fuck does that have to do with geeks?
It has to do with geeks because it has to do with Speed Racer. Speed Racer, tripe that it is, is very popular with certain elements of the geek crowd. And just because you're a backwoods hick doesn't mean yuppies shouldn't be buying $300,000 worthless cars.
'Cause you need to have been involved in an actual auction with the person you're giving negative feedback (you need the auction number). Recently I think they changed it so that you have to have an auction number for any feedback, which is probably why there is no recent feedback on that account.
The way it refers to the "most restrictive and conservative state's community standards", that quote indicates to me that the court is merely recognizing that internet sites can be accessed from anywhere in America and not giving any thought at all to international internet users. And really, if they decided to recognize the internationality of the internet it wouldn't really make a difference; COPA is already unusable against foreign websites.
They are a public service broadcaster at the end of the day
Yeah, but their public is the U.K., so they might not feel so hot about giving away their material to the other 6 billion people in the world who don't have to buy TV licenses to support them.
For instance, one day a caveman decides he finds large breasts attractive. He marries a girl with big tits. All his children inherit his desire for breasts, and also look for wives with big knockers. Eventually, having large breasts is considered a desirable quality in a mate, even though it serves no real purpose.
That makes no sense. The "likes-big-hooters" trait, if it had no advantage to the species, would be diluted and all but vanish in a few generations.
i am glad that there is another smart person in the world that relizes that when we support a person with a disability that we are dirtying our own gene pool yes it sounds cruel. but get over it.
This is a gross oversimplification of a complex problem. Allowing a disabled person to survice is not dirtying the gene pool. Allowing a disabled person to pass on his/her genes may be detrimental to the gene pool, depending on whether the genes causing the disability are actually passed on and whether the total outweighs the negative aspect of the genes. For instance, a man with a poor sense of smell but an extremely advanced immune system could be extremely beneficial to the species. The classic real world example is Stephen Hawking, who a century ago would have been rotting in a hospital if not already dead. Certainly controlled evolution is necessary to secure the future of life, but there's a lot more to it than your oversimplification.
For one thing, only allow "healthy" humans to be born and evolve ourselves are not adequate descriptions. Only allowing conformist genes to enter the genepool would be a form of evolution, so (A) is really just a subset of (B). I think that what you really meant to say is that we are faced with a choice between not allowing people with genetic defects to reproduce and allowing them to reproduce but working to correct their defects.
The most sensitive measurement ever made of a star's shape shows that our sun is speckled with tiny hills and dales, much like the surface of the ocean
Yeah, but consider how insignificant the hills and dales on the surface of the ocean are relative to the size of the planet. I don't know how accurate this is, but I've been told that if the Earth were the size of an orange, the largest bump on the surface would be smaller than the bumps on the orange.
I understand (sort of) your garbled babbling, but I still don't see how it relates to the topic. Of course no one uses anything just because it's closed. But how does that relate to the subject at hand?
So it's OK because the artist isn't "loosing" (sic.) any money. That's an easy argument to hide behind, but the fact remains that you are listening to and enjoying music without in any way compensating the artist for her work.
I believe that this would have exactly the opposite effect; a loss of freedom and tightening of censorship controls. How long do you think the powers that be will tolerate kiddie porn, encryption secrets, and Metallica songs being freely available due to a loophole in mathematics before that loophole is irrevocably closed? Every time someone comes up with a clever idea like this it gives the (metaphorical) Man an excuse to tighten his grip.
Figuring out ways to get around the law like this is childish and doesn't help the cause of opposing censorship. Instead of wasting our time finding loopholes in the laws, we should spend our collective energy trying to change them.
On the other hand, it is almost like blaming the Yellow Pages for criminal acts committed with the knives advertised within.
I don't like that metaphor. For one thing, the yellow pages is a lot further removed from knife crime than Napster is from copyright violation. After all, it's not a crime to buy a knife, just to kill someone with it. Maybe if the yellow pages listed crack dealers they could be tied to drug sales.
Also, Napster has very little practical use outside of trading illegal MP3s. Maybe if the yellow pages were exclusively advertisements for drug dealers it would be closer. After all, some of the clientele are bound to want legal prescriptions, just not most of them.
Another thing you failed to consider is that Napster doesn't just own the servers, they also created the protocol and wrote (some of) the clients.
According to my local paper, there's a lot of suspicion surrounding the recovery of the drives since the area was already searched thoroughly twice, once by the FBI.
You fail to consider how standards come to be standards. The comment before yours remarks on how no one forces you to use Microsoft products; along the same lines no one forces the company you work for to use Microsoft products. A standard is only a standard because a bunch of people agree that it's a standard. So if the public as a whole really cared about open vs. closed standards, they would stop using proprietary protocols and switch to open ones. The fact is, if open protocols really are superior, it's only a matter of time (maybe a long time) before they take over. But the only way to really find out is to wait and see, without the government stepping in to force disclosure.
Png is a fine idea, but as with many things the standard it's designed to replace is too firmly rooted. Even Slashdot, a site famous for its support of open standards, is still using gifs.
Slashdot Mirror
...does admiteddly benefit many Americans - specifically those living off the ultra-corrupt industry that is law enforcement.
And don't forget about those who make their living smuggling or selling drugs, whose business depends on having enough heat to make the drugs valuable but not enough to keep them from selling them.
How ironic that the is being used to promote child safety.
The woman in the picture is not a child, is she? Clearly a child's head would be well below the decapitation point.
a threehundred thousand dollar car that has saws? what the fuck does that have to do with geeks?
It has to do with geeks because it has to do with Speed Racer. Speed Racer, tripe that it is, is very popular with certain elements of the geek crowd. And just because you're a backwoods hick doesn't mean yuppies shouldn't be buying $300,000 worthless cars.
'Cause you need to have been involved in an actual auction with the person you're giving negative feedback (you need the auction number). Recently I think they changed it so that you have to have an auction number for any feedback, which is probably why there is no recent feedback on that account.
People would probably notice you too if you cut your head off. So since you seem to crave attention, why don't you do that?
That is really ludicrously stupid. Why did anyone waste their time building such a thing? Who would be dumb enough to buy it?
The way it refers to the "most restrictive and conservative state's community standards", that quote indicates to me that the court is merely recognizing that internet sites can be accessed from anywhere in America and not giving any thought at all to international internet users. And really, if they decided to recognize the internationality of the internet it wouldn't really make a difference; COPA is already unusable against foreign websites.
They are a public service broadcaster at the end of the day
Yeah, but their public is the U.K., so they might not feel so hot about giving away their material to the other 6 billion people in the world who don't have to buy TV licenses to support them.
For instance, one day a caveman decides he finds large breasts attractive. He marries a girl with big tits. All his children inherit his desire for breasts, and also look for wives with big knockers. Eventually, having large breasts is considered a desirable quality in a mate, even though it serves no real purpose.
That makes no sense. The "likes-big-hooters" trait, if it had no advantage to the species, would be diluted and all but vanish in a few generations.
I realize you can't literally inherit wealth
Um... if your Uncle dies and leaves you some money, have you not just inherited wealth? Literally?
i am glad that there is another smart person in the world that relizes that when we support a person with a disability that we are dirtying our own gene pool yes it sounds cruel. but get over it.
This is a gross oversimplification of a complex problem. Allowing a disabled person to survice is not dirtying the gene pool. Allowing a disabled person to pass on his/her genes may be detrimental to the gene pool, depending on whether the genes causing the disability are actually passed on and whether the total outweighs the negative aspect of the genes. For instance, a man with a poor sense of smell but an extremely advanced immune system could be extremely beneficial to the species. The classic real world example is Stephen Hawking, who a century ago would have been rotting in a hospital if not already dead. Certainly controlled evolution is necessary to secure the future of life, but there's a lot more to it than your oversimplification.
For one thing, only allow "healthy" humans to be born and evolve ourselves are not adequate descriptions. Only allowing conformist genes to enter the genepool would be a form of evolution, so (A) is really just a subset of (B). I think that what you really meant to say is that we are faced with a choice between not allowing people with genetic defects to reproduce and allowing them to reproduce but working to correct their defects.
The "Golden Cocoon" award is on the "Selling It" page - the last page of the magazine and certainly the most entertaining in a cynical sort of way.
The most sensitive measurement ever made of a star's shape shows that our sun is speckled with tiny hills and dales, much like the surface of the ocean
Yeah, but consider how insignificant the hills and dales on the surface of the ocean are relative to the size of the planet. I don't know how accurate this is, but I've been told that if the Earth were the size of an orange, the largest bump on the surface would be smaller than the bumps on the orange.
Yeah, but how do satelites and space shuttles get into their orbits? They have to be launched. At high speed. And pass through orbiting space debris.
It has to complete 1000 turns in 1 second. 1/1000 is one thousandth of a second per turn.
I understand (sort of) your garbled babbling, but I still don't see how it relates to the topic. Of course no one uses anything just because it's closed. But how does that relate to the subject at hand?
What? A closed standard is appealing because it's a de facto standard? What the heck are you talking about?
What?
So it's OK because the artist isn't "loosing" (sic.) any money. That's an easy argument to hide behind, but the fact remains that you are listening to and enjoying music without in any way compensating the artist for her work.
I believe that this would have exactly the opposite effect; a loss of freedom and tightening of censorship controls. How long do you think the powers that be will tolerate kiddie porn, encryption secrets, and Metallica songs being freely available due to a loophole in mathematics before that loophole is irrevocably closed? Every time someone comes up with a clever idea like this it gives the (metaphorical) Man an excuse to tighten his grip.
Figuring out ways to get around the law like this is childish and doesn't help the cause of opposing censorship. Instead of wasting our time finding loopholes in the laws, we should spend our collective energy trying to change them.
On the other hand, it is almost like blaming the Yellow Pages for criminal acts committed with the knives advertised within.
I don't like that metaphor. For one thing, the yellow pages is a lot further removed from knife crime than Napster is from copyright violation. After all, it's not a crime to buy a knife, just to kill someone with it. Maybe if the yellow pages listed crack dealers they could be tied to drug sales.
Also, Napster has very little practical use outside of trading illegal MP3s. Maybe if the yellow pages were exclusively advertisements for drug dealers it would be closer. After all, some of the clientele are bound to want legal prescriptions, just not most of them.
Another thing you failed to consider is that Napster doesn't just own the servers, they also created the protocol and wrote (some of) the clients.
But if only a couple of the songs you downloaded had been good - not enough to warrant buying the CD, would you have kept the songs anyway?
According to my local paper, there's a lot of suspicion surrounding the recovery of the drives since the area was already searched thoroughly twice, once by the FBI.
You fail to consider how standards come to be standards. The comment before yours remarks on how no one forces you to use Microsoft products; along the same lines no one forces the company you work for to use Microsoft products. A standard is only a standard because a bunch of people agree that it's a standard. So if the public as a whole really cared about open vs. closed standards, they would stop using proprietary protocols and switch to open ones. The fact is, if open protocols really are superior, it's only a matter of time (maybe a long time) before they take over. But the only way to really find out is to wait and see, without the government stepping in to force disclosure.
Png is a fine idea, but as with many things the standard it's designed to replace is too firmly rooted. Even Slashdot, a site famous for its support of open standards, is still using gifs.