In other words, if everyone licensed their software under the GPL, nobody could make any money selling that software. The software economy would collapse, and hundreds of thousands of people in the US alone would be out of work.
This is a popular misrepresentation of the software industry.
Most programmers are employed developing custom systems that never leave the buyer's premises. In such cases, software licensing is irrelevant. Only a small fraction of programmers are emplyoed making software that gets sold on a store shelf. The ratio may on average is like 19:1 depending on which job sites/pages you look at, but I suspect it's much higher than that.
To these programmers, free software is actually a huge benefit. In fact. a good deal of free software also comes from these developers as a by-product of work they do for hire.
Oh, you meant it can destroy the shrink-wrap software economy? Ho hum. Only Microsoft really makes money doing that anyway. Everyone else must offer service and support on top of that to survive.
RMS's intentions may be more noble than you think.
Simple Case and Point. Quake III on the Dreamcast outperforms Quake III on a Pentium II 400 with an 8 megabyte video card and 24 megs of system memory. In fact, I'm not sure Quake III would play on a PC with those specs at all, yet it kicks much ass on a Dreamcast.
It's reasonably playable on a PC like that with a TNT2. I think it looks like crap on both systems though.;)
I see this time and again in scientists. They'll rate a planet by how much like earth it is, and the less like earth, the less likely it is to sustain life.
I don't buy that. These scientists are still too brainwashed by myths of creation, as if God made living things and searched for a planet that He could stash them on. It seems much more likely that we evolved to best survive on earth. That life is a product of a planet, not simply a consumer that ended up there at the right place at the right time.
I think it's very arrogant to believe all living things in the universe must be carbon based.
Mafiaboy is only part of the story
on
Tracking Mafiaboy
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· Score: 2
Having a front row seat to the whole ordeal, I can say that mafiaboy is only a small part of the overall story, which is far more interesting and would make for a much better book. I'd be glad to tell it in detail if someone offered a book deal.
The real people involved are probably too incapable of doing it themselves, so I figure it'd be better to write it myself and give them a cut of whatever I make.
There was a video released..
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E3 Doom III Preview
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· Score: 2, Informative
But it's in some open source unfriendly format. Does anyone have it in mpeg?
And Intel's compiler beat the living crap out of GNU's.
Yeah, but at least I can freely download and redistribute GCC. With Intel's C Compiler, one has to write a crack to get past the retarded copy protection, such as this one:
#!/bin/sh
## ## haX0red Intel C/C++ Compiler ## ## This simple shell script will h4x0r the icc compiler so that ## it skips the check for a valid license file. I was inspired ## to do this because of the asshole Intel engineer at ## LinuxWorld 2002 who did everything he could to dodge ## my questions about Intel's compiler and other general rudeness. ## ## I developed this hack against this version: ## ## Intel(R) C++ Compiler for 32-bit applications, Version 5.0.1 Build 010730D0 ## Copyright (C) 1985-2001 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. ## ## ## Usage: ## Install the Intel C compiler. Don't download a license! ## ## Make sure to import all of the variables that the compiler ## needs to function (it won't work with vanilla include/libraries) ## ## Enjoy! ##
Note that the crack uses GDB (another free, superior, FSF product) to manipulate command execution to bypass the license file check. What delicious irony.
I've never used finance software before, but when I started my business I knew I needed some way to keep track of finances. I've been using gnucash and it seems to fit the bill. Although I don't know if I'm missing anything by not using Quicken or whatever.
I think people need an actual understanding of accounting to use gnucash, whereas with Quicken you can just answer all of the pretty questions. I've talked to some people who use Quicken to manage their finances and they really don't get accounting at all.
You have a moral obligation to ignore any laws that you do not agree with-- especially laws that are designed to protect the interests of a select few at the expense of society proper.
My goal is to be a master of my craft. To be able to walk down the street and say that out of the 1 million people I will ever come across, I can do things that they cannot. Besides the huge boost to one's ego this brings (which is quite a problem if you don't control it), you just feel damn good knowing you can solve problems with technology.
I am not college educated. In fact, if it weren't for a technicality I'd have failed high school and dropped out. But the moral is that there are multiple paths from point A to point B, both have advantages and disadvantages. Do what you like. If you're not a structured education kind of person (and I guess I'm not), don't force yourself to sit through years of college being miserable.
Don't be afraid to take chances. Sticking to the same beaten path means you're likely to get the same mediocre rewards as everyone else.:)
From reading the article, it's clear that the developers and maintainers of the bnetd project are Blizzard supporters. They are doing for free what Blizzard had to pay programmers to develop, and from the looks of the article, their paid programmers did it somewhat suboptimally.
Blizzard has a great resource at their disposal. The community that developed around their games has reached a point where they have started writing code to correct the flaws in Blizzard's system. How many companies can only dream of having such a devoted fanbase?
Unfortunately, depressingly, Blizzard's response to this is not an enlightened response that embraces such a community for mutual gain, but one which aims to lobotomize it. There will be no winners from this course of action. bnetd will always exist (potentially with consequences for the original author) and Blizzard will only harm a community that for the most part supports them.
Blizzard chooses to hide behind legislation to defend a business model that cannot naturally work , rather than innovate and develop one that benefits all, including themselves.
The whole reason programmers are paid to develop custom systems is because there isn't a shrink-wrapped software package that does exactly what they want. A custom system is not generalized, documented, or supported well enough to be resold as a packaged product to a mass market--because that's not the point!
The client pays you to build them a system that is tailored around their business. If they didn't want that, they would've bought it from Microsoft already.
The client should care if his rights to the code mean that he can fire you at any time and hire someone else. There is no reason they should ever expect to possess sole IP rights to it.
It might mean that their competitor gets their hands on it one day. I say big deal. In all but the most contrived cases. their competitors are likely not to have the same systems, access to developers who can easily work with it at their disposal, or a desire to use code written by their most despised rivals. In the remote chance that their competitors do gain from it, the benefits of open sourcing it will far outweigh anything bad that their competitors may have gained.
Open sourcing the project does have the obvious benefits. A community may develop around the project and support it long after the original developer left it behind. With this comes positive feedback, as the company (to the seemingly uninitiated) has committed a wanton act of charity--but they know the real truth, that software is not a zero-sum game and that by giving up nothing they've gained so much.
Or they can naively hoard code because they think their assortment of bits has an intrinsic resale value, but will in the end gain them only the loss of the benefits of open source.
I used to work at an ISP. Was with the company for approximately 3 years. The company forked off an internet promotions subsidiary. My role was to be the guy who gets the technology in order to make it happen.
If you're new to this, lets be clear, internet promotion is spamming. Fuck that. I'm not going to use my (frankly, awesome) skillset to stuff junkmail in people's inboxes. How could I live with myself? So I quit. There were some other reasons as well, but this managed to be the clincher.
I run my own business now, where no one is going to pressure me to sacrifice my morals for the almighty buck. That's all the hippocratic oath I need.
Millions of people are in prison over drugs, many rights are suspended simply on unfounded suspicion of drug involvement.
Do you have evidence? If they were involved in drugs then I'm glad they are in prison. Sure, there may occasionally be errors. I do not believe there is any law enforcement conspiracy to wrongfully imprison anyone. What would they gain? Come on, they do their job just like the next guy.
Our prison population is ridiculously large. We have more people in prison than China does (although China is admittedly much more quick to execute). Surely you don't believe that every single pot smoking hippy deserves 2 years to life?
Your argument seems to support imprisoning drug users and drug dealers, which is strange because your other arguments focus on personal responsibility without government involvement. Shouldn't people be allowed to smoke or inject whatever they want?
Also, as another poster pointed out, plain suspicion (which could be as much as an anonymous unsubstantiated tip, for those of you who like playing pranks) is enough to have your assets seized. It was certainly enough to give police a warrant to make a no-knock-guns-drawn-raid on a residence.
The US on average takes military action against a nation at least once every 2 years, and has kept it up since 1990.
Being the last remaining superpower is a bummer sometimes. I think we got involved in a few conflicts that weren't our business while Clinton was in power. But Iraq? Afghanistan? Totally justified and our interests were threatend.
Overthrowing democratically elected governments in 20 banana republics over the last 50 years to install military dictatorships is an interest of ours that I'd rather went unserved.
I don't see how anyone who is aware of the facts behind the Iraq/Kuwait conflict can say that the US had any justification to direct such a huge military campaign with consequences that affect the world to this day.
Afghanistan? Oh, I guess. But just remember when we fund terrorists like the Northern Alliance, the correct term is "freedom fighters".
Just like Osama bin Laden and his cronies were freedom fighters when we armed them to oust the USSR. I can see how this could lead to an unfavorable impression of us.
Corporations seem to be able to buy legislation to suit their needs. Many of the largest scandals are closely linked to the administration: Enron, Savings & Loan, etc.
I've said it once and I'll say it again: If corporations or interest groups have too much power it is because WE THE PEOPLE aren't doing our job and keeping our congress-critters on a leash. We have no-one to blame but ourselves.
So what part have I said about how this makes living here slightly unsettling is untrue? Am I supposed to be comforted because WE THE PEOPLE are OK with it?
There's a pretty good chance the Anthrax mailer got his stuff from US labs (the whole story is actually much scarier, if true).
Yeah, he probably did. Does that bother me? No. It bothers me that he hasn't been caught but I really could care less whether he got it in the U.S. or in Afghanistan.
The chances are pretty good that the FBI knows exactly who he is, where he got his Anthrax, and even where he's living right now.
His name is Dr. Philip Zack. Google search it. He was a research scientist in a biochem lab who was fired for harassing a coworker who hails from (I think) Egypt. A few weeks after he was recorded sneaking into the lab, and coincidentally some Anthrax was missing.
After the Anthrax letters were mailed out, he attempted to frame his ex-coworker who he was fired for harassing. The FBI questioned the poor fellow and determined that he had nothing to do with it. Oh, also, Dr. Philip Zack is apparantly a loudmouthed Muslim-hating zionist. Some questions you might ask: Why was he allowed to get his hands on Anthrax? Why hasn't the FBI arrested this man? Why would a Zionist send Anthrax to democrats and the media with letters preaching hate against the US, Israel, and praising Allah? The FBI has officially stated to know the mailer's identity but are hesitant to act on it for some undisclosed reason. It has since been ignored by the popular media.
Spooked?
There's plenty of reasons to distrust our government and not feel comfortable living in the US.
I mean, just ask a Native American if they trust the US Government. Or a Japanese family that was living here during WW2.
More than 50% of the nation's budget is allocated to the military.
50%? Please check that number again. Even these guys [fcnl.org] (that appear to probably be anti-military) only cite 23.7%.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/bud3 4. html
I'm only an amateur accountant, but check out the table titled "Table S-7. Discretionary Budget Authority by Agency". Defense has about 49% of the budget, not counting whatever other agencies contribute towards the "War On Terrorism".
But when you've lived in one of these "other countries" for 6+ years, believe me, you will miss the petty problems the U.S. has. It really puts things in perspective.
Oh, I'm the first to admit that our problems seem petty when most of the world lives in squalor and poverty. You have people here who are allergic to food. I bet hungry people aren't allergic to anything. But nonetheless, they are still problems, and they are relevant to our lives since we do live in a different world.
Massive electoral fraud.
I'm kind of tired of the whole "Bush family election fraud" conspiracy theory. I know it's a bummer your candidate lost by so little, but he did. Get over it. If there had been fraud I think they would have at least stuffed enough ballots to make the win decisive.
You really ought to not assume who my candidate was, I wasn't any more interested in Gore than I was Bush. In any case, try bushneverwonflorida.com makes for some good reading. Also try Stupid White Men, by Michael Moore.
One of the only "civilized" nations to still have a death penalty
Yeah, it's so much more civilized to throw them in a dungeon and throw away the key... but pay $50k/year to do it.
You didn't quote where I said 1 out of every 8 people sentenced to die has been later released with all charges dropped. It seems insane to insist on an irreversible form of punishment with such a discomforting error rate.
Depleted uranium shells used in the Gulf War by coalition forces are causing cancer in Iraqi civilians even today.
Link/source?
Is the BBC reputable enough? http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/scotland/newsi d_1873000/1873534.stm
No public healthcare, which most other "civilized" nations offer.
You refer to the quasi-capitalist European nations with confiscatory levels of taxation?
I agree we ought to do something about health care for those that don't have insurance. I think we can and will. But a national healthcare system for the entire country? No thank you, I'd rather pay.
Have you ever hunted for a health care provider? What a miserable way to spend your time.
I'm all for paying a little more to get quality service, but it just isn't there. I still haven't been able to decide on a company for my business.
With public health care you at least don't run a risk of missing some detail in the contract that leaves you without coverage if you have a serious problem. Having that option to fall back on is something I'd gladly pay for in taxes.
Still no straight answer on what down at Waco Texas and why specific other agencies were involved (such as the Delta Force), but the end result is an entire, seemingly harmless community of Christians is dead.
Yeah, a bunch of harmless Christians with heavy artillery. Unless you buy into the whole conspiracy theory that weapons were placed there after the fact. Which would mean the government killed off that sect because.... why exactly??
I just said there were a lot of questions unanswered about the whole ordeal. Which is worrisome. Here's an article written by a survivor. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/09/09/waco/
The US has used and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Nukes, yes.
You say that like it's no big deal. What possible use could we have for a nuclear arsenal that could annihilate the planet with plenty to spare? Why would anyone feel that is acceptable?
My girlfriend is bothering me so I'm cutting this short. I'll probably respond to the rest later.
I've never visited those countries, so I have no idea if I'm completely talking out of my ass, but you can easily make the United States look like a scary place.
Massive electoral fraud. The current President used his family's influence to come to power. His father was, among other things, head of the CIA, who has had plenty of experience rigging elections.
Millions of people are in prison over drugs, many rights are suspended simply on unfounded suspicion of drug involvement.
The US on average takes military action against a nation at least once every 2 years, and has kept it up since 1990.
Corporations seem to be able to buy legislation to suit their needs. Many of the largest scandals are closely linked to the administration: Enron, Savings & Loan, etc.
One of the only "civilized" nations to still have a death penalty.
Death penalty supporters claim that other nations don't have nearly as big a problem with murder as we do, which means we have a murder problem?
One out of every eight people sentenced to death is eventually cleared of all charges. How many don't make it?
The US has used and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction. There's a pretty good chance the Anthrax mailer got his stuff from US labs (the whole story is actually much scarier, if true). Depleted uranium shells used in the Gulf War by coalition forces are causing cancer in
Iraqi civilians even today.
Law enforcement appears to be largely unaccountable. Still no straight answer on what down at Waco Texas and why specific other agencies were involved (such as the Delta Force), but the end result is an entire, seemingly harmless community of Christians is dead.
Terrorist attacks against the nation take place on an almost yearly basis.
No public healthcare, which most other "civilized" nations offer.
More than 50% of the nation's budget is allocated to the military.
Ho hum. I get along here just fine, in spite of all of these.
Would this be a story on here if it was, say, GE lightbulbs, instead of Oracle?
Of course!
GE sells way more than just light bulbs and harmless washing machines. They're a major force in weapons research and development. Until very recently they were even involved in nuclear weapons development and testing and better-than-Enron-style government corruption.
Software licensing is really complicated. The typical bureacrat is just not up to it. If State Governments paid what Industry pays for IT executives, especially in California, there might be some chance that this kind of thing could be brought under control.
From the article: Davis offered no comment on either Baheti's resignation or his suspension of Cortez, who will continue to receive his $123,255 annual salary during his indefinite leave.
Cry me a fuckin' river. I want a California state government job.
I laugh, laugh at all of those people who turned down careers in consulting because they needed "permanent" jobs because they had a mortgage to pay.
If you're consulting you're not dependent on one business and the whims of incompetent shareholders and upper management looking to give themselves fat bonuses. You also tend to save a lot more because planning for a rainy day is a business requirement, not just something you'll do after next paycheck.
It really makes me wonder. Complete and total idiots manage to survive as consultants, but smart, sharp people here are of the concensus that they're not exceptional enough.
We'll provide free initial security auditing just to scare the crap out of you and let you know what you're up against. Then we'll be glad to sit down and discuss the options, etc.
This is more than simply profit motive. Network security is everyone's responsibility and we see it as doing our part.
Slashdot Mirror
In other words, if everyone licensed their software under the GPL, nobody could make any money selling that software. The software economy would collapse, and hundreds of thousands of people in the US alone would be out of work.
This is a popular misrepresentation of the software industry.
Most programmers are employed developing custom systems that never leave the buyer's premises. In such cases, software licensing is irrelevant. Only a small fraction of programmers are emplyoed making software that gets sold on a store shelf. The ratio may on average is like 19:1 depending on which job sites/pages you look at, but I suspect it's much higher than that.
To these programmers, free software is actually a huge benefit. In fact. a good deal of free software also comes from these developers as a by-product of work they do for hire.
Oh, you meant it can destroy the shrink-wrap software economy? Ho hum. Only Microsoft really makes money doing that anyway. Everyone else must offer service and support on top of that to survive.
RMS's intentions may be more noble than you think.
Simple Case and Point. Quake III on the Dreamcast outperforms Quake III on a Pentium II 400 with an 8 megabyte video card and 24 megs of system memory. In fact, I'm not sure Quake III would play on a PC with those specs at all, yet it kicks much ass on a Dreamcast.
It's reasonably playable on a PC like that with a TNT2. I think it looks like crap on both systems though. ;)
I see this time and again in scientists. They'll rate a planet by how much like earth it is, and the less like earth, the less likely it is to sustain life.
I don't buy that. These scientists are still too brainwashed by myths of creation, as if God made living things and searched for a planet that He could stash them on. It seems much more likely that we evolved to best survive on earth. That life is a product of a planet, not simply a consumer that ended up there at the right place at the right time.
I think it's very arrogant to believe all living things in the universe must be carbon based.
Having a front row seat to the whole ordeal, I can say that mafiaboy is only a small part of the overall story, which is far more interesting and would make for a much better book. I'd be glad to tell it in detail if someone offered a book deal.
The real people involved are probably too incapable of doing it themselves, so I figure it'd be better to write it myself and give them a cut of whatever I make.
But it's in some open source unfriendly format. Does anyone have it in mpeg?
The only thing I didn't like about playing GTA3 was that I knew it would end. That saddened me.
I fear that I'm going to be reduced to a begging junkie sleeping outside of the store the night before it goes on sale.
And Intel's compiler beat the living crap out of GNU's.
Yeah, but at least I can freely download and redistribute GCC. With Intel's C Compiler, one has to write a crack to get past the retarded copy protection, such as this one:
Note that the crack uses GDB (another free, superior, FSF product) to manipulate command execution to bypass the license file check. What delicious irony.
I've never used finance software before, but when I started my business I knew I needed some way to keep track of finances. I've been using gnucash and it seems to fit the bill. Although I don't know if I'm missing anything by not using Quicken or whatever.
I think people need an actual understanding of accounting to use gnucash, whereas with Quicken you can just answer all of the pretty questions. I've talked to some people who use Quicken to manage their finances and they really don't get accounting at all.
What am I missing by only using gnucash?
Civil Disobedience.
You have a moral obligation to ignore any laws that you do not agree with-- especially laws that are designed to protect the interests of a select few at the expense of society proper.
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/
My goal is to be a master of my craft. To be able to walk down the street and say that out of the 1 million people I will ever come across, I can do things that they cannot. Besides the huge boost to one's ego this brings (which is quite a problem if you don't control it), you just feel damn good knowing you can solve problems with technology.
I am not college educated. In fact, if it weren't for a technicality I'd have failed high school and dropped out. But the moral is that there are multiple paths from point A to point B, both have advantages and disadvantages. Do what you like. If you're not a structured education kind of person (and I guess I'm not), don't force yourself to sit through years of college being miserable.
Don't be afraid to take chances. Sticking to the same beaten path means you're likely to get the same mediocre rewards as everyone else. :)
From reading the article, it's clear that the developers and maintainers of the bnetd project are Blizzard supporters. They are doing for free what Blizzard had to pay programmers to develop, and from the looks of the article, their paid programmers did it somewhat suboptimally.
Blizzard has a great resource at their disposal. The community that developed around their games has reached a point where they have started writing code to correct the flaws in Blizzard's system. How many companies can only dream of having such a devoted fanbase?
Unfortunately, depressingly, Blizzard's response to this is not an enlightened response that embraces such a community for mutual gain, but one which aims to lobotomize it. There will be no winners from this course of action. bnetd will always exist (potentially with consequences for the original author) and Blizzard will only harm a community that for the most part supports them.
Blizzard chooses to hide behind legislation to defend a business model that cannot naturally work , rather than innovate and develop one that benefits all, including themselves.
The whole reason programmers are paid to develop custom systems is because there isn't a shrink-wrapped software package that does exactly what they want. A custom system is not generalized, documented, or supported well enough to be resold as a packaged product to a mass market--because that's not the point!
The client pays you to build them a system that is tailored around their business. If they didn't want that, they would've bought it from Microsoft already.
The client should care if his rights to the code mean that he can fire you at any time and hire someone else. There is no reason they should ever expect to possess sole IP rights to it.
It might mean that their competitor gets their hands on it one day. I say big deal. In all but the most contrived cases. their competitors are likely not to have the same systems, access to developers who can easily work with it at their disposal, or a desire to use code written by their most despised rivals. In the remote chance that their competitors do gain from it, the benefits of open sourcing it will far outweigh anything bad that their competitors may have gained.
Open sourcing the project does have the obvious benefits. A community may develop around the project and support it long after the original developer left it behind. With this comes positive feedback, as the company (to the seemingly uninitiated) has committed a wanton act of charity--but they know the real truth, that software is not a zero-sum game and that by giving up nothing they've gained so much.
Or they can naively hoard code because they think their assortment of bits has an intrinsic resale value, but will in the end gain them only the loss of the benefits of open source.
Yeah, but that clipping is enough to get the point across.
Civil disobedience
I used to work at an ISP. Was with the company for approximately 3 years. The company forked off an internet promotions subsidiary. My role was to be the guy who gets the technology in order to make it happen.
If you're new to this, lets be clear, internet promotion is spamming. Fuck that. I'm not going to use my (frankly, awesome) skillset to stuff junkmail in people's inboxes. How could I live with myself? So I quit. There were some other reasons as well, but this managed to be the clincher.
I run my own business now, where no one is going to pressure me to sacrifice my morals for the almighty buck. That's all the hippocratic oath I need.
Awesome!
To continue...
Millions of people are in prison over drugs, many rights are suspended simply on unfounded suspicion of drug involvement.
Do you have evidence? If they were involved in drugs then I'm glad they are in prison. Sure, there may occasionally be errors. I do not believe there is any law enforcement conspiracy to wrongfully imprison anyone. What would they gain? Come on, they do their job just like the next guy.
Our prison population is ridiculously large. We have more people in prison than China does (although China is admittedly much more quick to execute). Surely you don't believe that every single pot smoking hippy deserves 2 years to life?
Your argument seems to support imprisoning drug users and drug dealers, which is strange because your other arguments focus on personal responsibility without government involvement. Shouldn't people be allowed to smoke or inject whatever they want?
Also, as another poster pointed out, plain suspicion (which could be as much as an anonymous unsubstantiated tip, for those of you who like playing pranks) is enough to have your assets seized. It was certainly enough to give police a warrant to make a no-knock-guns-drawn-raid on a residence.
The US on average takes military action against a nation at least once every 2 years, and has kept it up since 1990.
Being the last remaining superpower is a bummer sometimes. I think we got involved in a few conflicts that weren't our business while Clinton was in power. But Iraq? Afghanistan? Totally justified and our interests were threatend.
Overthrowing democratically elected governments in 20 banana republics over the last 50 years to install military dictatorships is an interest of ours that I'd rather went unserved.
I don't see how anyone who is aware of the facts behind the Iraq/Kuwait conflict can say that the US had any justification to direct such a huge military campaign with consequences that affect the world to this day.
Afghanistan? Oh, I guess. But just remember when we fund terrorists like the Northern Alliance, the correct term is "freedom fighters". Just like Osama bin Laden and his cronies were freedom fighters when we armed them to oust the USSR. I can see how this could lead to an unfavorable impression of us.
Corporations seem to be able to buy legislation to suit their needs. Many of the largest scandals are closely linked to the administration: Enron, Savings & Loan, etc.
I've said it once and I'll say it again: If corporations or interest groups have too much power it is because WE THE PEOPLE aren't doing our job and keeping our congress-critters on a leash. We have no-one to blame but ourselves.
So what part have I said about how this makes living here slightly unsettling is untrue? Am I supposed to be comforted because WE THE PEOPLE are OK with it?
There's a pretty good chance the Anthrax mailer got his stuff from US labs (the whole story is actually much scarier, if true).
Yeah, he probably did. Does that bother me? No. It bothers me that he hasn't been caught but I really could care less whether he got it in the U.S. or in Afghanistan.
The chances are pretty good that the FBI knows exactly who he is, where he got his Anthrax, and even where he's living right now.
His name is Dr. Philip Zack. Google search it. He was a research scientist in a biochem lab who was fired for harassing a coworker who hails from (I think) Egypt. A few weeks after he was recorded sneaking into the lab, and coincidentally some Anthrax was missing.
After the Anthrax letters were mailed out, he attempted to frame his ex-coworker who he was fired for harassing. The FBI questioned the poor fellow and determined that he had nothing to do with it. Oh, also, Dr. Philip Zack is apparantly a loudmouthed Muslim-hating zionist. Some questions you might ask: Why was he allowed to get his hands on Anthrax? Why hasn't the FBI arrested this man? Why would a Zionist send Anthrax to democrats and the media with letters preaching hate against the US, Israel, and praising Allah? The FBI has officially stated to know the mailer's identity but are hesitant to act on it for some undisclosed reason. It has since been ignored by the popular media.
Spooked?
There's plenty of reasons to distrust our government and not feel comfortable living in the US.
I mean, just ask a Native American if they trust the US Government. Or a Japanese family that was living here during WW2.
More than 50% of the nation's budget is allocated to the military.
50%? Please check that number again. Even these guys [fcnl.org] (that appear to probably be anti-military) only cite 23.7%.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2003/bud3 4. html
I'm only an amateur accountant, but check out the table titled "Table S-7. Discretionary Budget Authority by Agency". Defense has about 49% of the budget, not counting whatever other agencies contribute towards the "War On Terrorism".
But when you've lived in one of these "other countries" for 6+ years, believe me, you will miss the petty problems the U.S. has. It really puts things in perspective.
Oh, I'm the first to admit that our problems seem petty when most of the world lives in squalor and poverty. You have people here who are allergic to food. I bet hungry people aren't allergic to anything. But nonetheless, they are still problems, and they are relevant to our lives since we do live in a different world.
Massive electoral fraud.
I'm kind of tired of the whole "Bush family election fraud" conspiracy theory. I know it's a bummer your candidate lost by so little, but he did. Get over it. If there had been fraud I think they would have at least stuffed enough ballots to make the win decisive.
You really ought to not assume who my candidate was, I wasn't any more interested in Gore than I was Bush. In any case, try bushneverwonflorida.com makes for some good reading. Also try Stupid White Men, by Michael Moore.
One of the only "civilized" nations to still have a death penalty
Yeah, it's so much more civilized to throw them in a dungeon and throw away the key... but pay $50k/year to do it.
You didn't quote where I said 1 out of every 8 people sentenced to die has been later released with all charges dropped. It seems insane to insist on an irreversible form of punishment with such a discomforting error rate.
Depleted uranium shells used in the Gulf War by coalition forces are causing cancer in Iraqi civilians even today.
Link/source?
Is the BBC reputable enough? http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/scotland/newsi d_1873000/1873534.stm
No public healthcare, which most other "civilized" nations offer.
You refer to the quasi-capitalist European nations with confiscatory levels of taxation?
I agree we ought to do something about health care for those that don't have insurance. I think we can and will. But a national healthcare system for the entire country? No thank you, I'd rather pay.
Have you ever hunted for a health care provider? What a miserable way to spend your time. I'm all for paying a little more to get quality service, but it just isn't there. I still haven't been able to decide on a company for my business.
With public health care you at least don't run a risk of missing some detail in the contract that leaves you without coverage if you have a serious problem. Having that option to fall back on is something I'd gladly pay for in taxes.
Still no straight answer on what down at Waco Texas and why specific other agencies were involved (such as the Delta Force), but the end result is an entire, seemingly harmless community of Christians is dead.
Yeah, a bunch of harmless Christians with heavy artillery. Unless you buy into the whole conspiracy theory that weapons were placed there after the fact. Which would mean the government killed off that sect because.... why exactly??
I just said there were a lot of questions unanswered about the whole ordeal. Which is worrisome. Here's an article written by a survivor. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/09/09/waco/
The US has used and continues to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Nukes, yes.
You say that like it's no big deal. What possible use could we have for a nuclear arsenal that could annihilate the planet with plenty to spare? Why would anyone feel that is acceptable?
My girlfriend is bothering me so I'm cutting this short. I'll probably respond to the rest later.
I've never visited those countries, so I have no idea if I'm completely talking out of my ass, but you can easily make the United States look like a scary place.
Ho hum. I get along here just fine, in spite of all of these.
Would this be a story on here if it was, say, GE lightbulbs, instead of Oracle?
Of course!
GE sells way more than just light bulbs and harmless washing machines. They're a major force in weapons research and development. Until very recently they were even involved in nuclear weapons development and testing and better-than-Enron-style government corruption.
Everything they do is open to scandal. :)
Software licensing is really complicated. The typical bureacrat is just not up to it. If State Governments paid what Industry pays for IT executives, especially in California, there might be some chance that this kind of thing could be brought under control.
From the article: Davis offered no comment on either Baheti's resignation or his suspension of Cortez, who will continue to receive his $123,255 annual salary during his indefinite leave.
Cry me a fuckin' river. I want a California state government job.
I laugh, laugh at all of those people who turned down careers in consulting because they needed "permanent" jobs because they had a mortgage to pay.
If you're consulting you're not dependent on one business and the whims of incompetent shareholders and upper management looking to give themselves fat bonuses. You also tend to save a lot more because planning for a rainy day is a business requirement, not just something you'll do after next paycheck.
It really makes me wonder. Complete and total idiots manage to survive as consultants, but smart, sharp people here are of the concensus that they're not exceptional enough.
Try Python
It's way easy to learn and understand and extremely powerful. Integrates well with C/C++.
We'll provide free initial security auditing just to scare the crap out of you and let you know what you're up against. Then we'll be glad to sit down and discuss the options, etc.
This is more than simply profit motive. Network security is everyone's responsibility and we see it as doing our part.
See the 'ol homepage for more info.
That the appeal to bring the internet to everyone is an RFC.
Was anyone else kinda teary by the time they finished reading that?