Senior tech 1: How could we make our life easier? Senior tech 2: Well, we could get a mainframe and consolidate our major processes into one machine instead of using a variety of smaller, cheaper machines. Senior tech 1: Sounds good, let's do that. ... the following day... Market analysist: Great idea, boys! How much does it cost? Senior tech 1: About $46,000 in equipment and $8,000 in labor for setup. Market analysist: Right. *checks budget, just for kicks* Well, we can approve everything but the budget increase. Get to work!
Yeah, that, and what is jeff doing up at 1:45 in the morning?
I just wanted to say i really admire your quote. Very classy of you. I have read LOTR about 12 times now, and actually i have a test on the silmarillion tomorrow in my science fiction / fantasy class - it's an english class - heroic fantasy: beowulf thru tolkien. Anyway, good work, and I'm happy with myself that I know exactly where that quote comes from.
Unfortunately, people are so freaked out about anything with the word "nuclear" or "reaction" attached to it...
News flash, public: The Sun, our source of life and energy, is "Nuclear". In fact, it's just one big "Reaction".
To quote TMBG, "The sun is a mass of incadescent gas, a firey nuclear furnace, where hydrogen is built into helium at temperatures of millions of degrees."
Well, then. I'll put it this way. You have to agree to the terms and conditions when you sign up. They say "NO PORN and NO WAREZ". Beyond that, you can use up to however much of our 2 T-1's you want to. Obviously, it can't be unlimited. An OC 128 has a limited amount of bandwidth. The point is we don't charge based on bandwidth useage, our business model is based on disk useage.
It's a deal where if you set it up so that your credit card is auto-billed, you get the discount. We figure it saves us postage and paperwork, so we can use that to hook the customers up. But before we can auto bill your credit card, we have to get written authorization, i.e. mail or fax. If you want to do the automatic account set up online, where you get setup almost instantly, you'll have to fill out the form and fax it to us later this week, and that means paying the $10 for the first month. We'll credit back the $2 for the first month (s) you have paid, once we get the authorization form, and we'll change your recurring fee to $8.
If you want to wait, you could call us on monday. I forgot the 1800 number, but the LD number is 540 951 9404.
As far as I know, that deal is good until the end of time, your recurring charge becomes $8/month. If you want a more firm answer, feel free to talk to the owner of the company, he'll be there sometime around 11:30 EST. There's only 5 employees, so you get personalized service - we're on a first name basis with a few of our clients, and we know quite a few more just by recognizing their account name.
Anyway, I'm sorry we can't do it online, but you see, since the promotion is linked to autobilling of a credit card, we really just *can't* do it without a written authorization. We're a laid back business, but you can't afford to do things without paperwork.
eh, at the expense of having pissed off potential customers, it's $10/mo, but if you auto bill the credit card it's $8/mo. But, the same thing works for the solaris accounts - you can get solaris hosting w/ a 1 meg account (for small web pages =) for 4.95/mo, and if you autopay with a card, it's 2.95. Also, if you prepay a year, you get free domain registration.
That url is
http://www.netmar.com/~will/TiquitBrochure.pdf
Notes on mirror: ONE. Brochure is property of Tiquit designs, or whoever that company is. It's not mine.
TWO: If you're gonna hammer my server, sign up for webhosting with my company - www.netmar.com. Linux web hosting for $8/month, w/ 100 MB of space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited email aliases, PHP, Perl, C Cgi's, MySQL, etc.
as far as I understood it, the movie bombed but sony bailed them out, giving them like 6 million or something, just cause they were going tits up, and that was the major reason for the sony PS loyalty.
For anyone that doesn't know about the Atlantis scandal, they didn't just "not make up" the story of atlantis, basically they ripped the movie from Nadia and gave it a different title.
Actually, the nick (obviously from hackers) was from back when i knew jack schitt about computers, and i picked it to use on IRC when hanging out. I know it's lame, but i'm too lazy to change it. Anyway,
The company is Netmar Web Hosting. The web page is nasty, but the service is good. We're working on a new layout - beta.netmar.com - but.... ya know.... anyway,
Linux web hosting $10/mo, unlimited bandwidth, 100 MB space, unlimited email aliases, PHP, MySQL, Perl, etc.
I don't think we support IMAP. We do have a VERY aggressive spam filter that checks subjects, associations of words in subjects, and senders (actually we have 2 mail servers, one filtered and the other with no filter and no size limit).
Now that this article has died down, i'll link to the page. It's netmar web hosting. This seriously isn't a bandwidth issue - we have 2 T-1's from teir one providers. It's just... go to the page, and you'll see. We're working on new site design - beta.netmar.com - but anyway...
Linux hosting for $10/mo, 100 MB, unlimited traffic/bandwidth, unlimited email aliases, PHP3, MySQL, Perl, etc etc. The linux box is a P-4 1.5 Ghz. If you want solaris hosting, or dedicated hosting we do that too. The solaris hosting is more expensive for space, but it's on a mad fast server (300 Mhz Ultra 2 sparc X 4).
I'm working for a small web hosting company as a Unix network admin, 2 days a week, for $8/hr, while I go to school and work on my degree the other 3 days a week.
For a network admin, that sucks. However, I love my job. There are only 5 employees, including the owner, and he's the oldest, being 27. We're all in college. I go to work wearing jeans, sandals, and a doors shirt. I answer the phone, fix people's stupid stuff (how does a.aliasmap file work? can you create a MySQL database for me?) and while it's silent, we work on improving our site's image (notice i'm not linking to it... this isn't because i'm trying to be noble and not shamelessly plug my company, i am, but i'm embarrassed by the current homepage).
Anyway, before i got lost, my point was working for a small company is the way to go, even if it's less money. The relationship you have with your peers and the lack of red tape is worth it in terms of saving your sanity. Trust me, i used to work for the man.
see, the thing is I liken this to the new river free press, where I live. I'm a fairly liberal person. But this news monthly puts me to shame. It is more left field than any politician I can think of. Anyway, in December's issue they had a list of products to boycott this christmas season. Some of them were legit, but some of them were outrageous. Example: Boycott everything made by Kraft Foods because the cows they milk for cheese get fed Bovine Growth Hormone. Now, point one: my girlfriend is in vet school, she has a degree in animal science specializing in beef production. According to her, BGH has *never* been proven to have ill side effects in humans or animals, but just in case, there's a period surrounding milking/ slaughter that they can't feed them BGH. Point two: The new river free press is read by *AT LEAST* 7,000 people. Even if EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM told 100 other people, and 700,000 people boycotted kraft, it wouldn't hurt them. You know why? Market share. how many of these brands do you buy?.
It's the same thing with blizzard. That was my point. A boycott would do no good. Even if everyone on slashdot participated.
I hate to burst the/. reader's bubble, but the collective group of us boycotting a game will do *nothing* to hurt blizard. Let's think about this: Slashdot has about a quarter million users. Of these, about 1/3 are zealots who don't run windows, not even for the little pleasures. Of the remaining, i would suspect fewer than 1/5 of them *EVER* buy software because they feel damnit it should be free (beer). And after that, I would say that 10% of the remaining windows users who don't pirate software actually play blizard games but would be still willing to participate in a boycot. The rest will go on buying the game anyway because it's going to be a good game.
So we're left with 3000 people that will take part in a boycot against the DCMA and Blizzard simultaneously. Oh Ouch. How many copies of diablo II have sold? Well here's a guess. 2.75 Million copies. And again, how about the expansion? Another million copies. Boycotting them will do no good.
Now, I was trying to figure out why they did this, and I was thinking "oh this is easy, there's a charge for playing on battle.net, that's their revenue model. But on battle.net i found this: Battle.net provides an arena for Blizzard customers to chat, challenge opponents and initiate multiplayer games, at no cost to the user. There is no hourly or monthly fee to use Battle.net, and there is no startup charge. To play a supported game over the Internet with other players worldwide, simply select the Battle.net option from within the game.
So what gives, blizard? How is this helping you? Are there ads in battle.net? Do you use it for free market research somehow? Do you simply want to track ALL of the online blizard games going on? Throw me a bone here.
But let's be serious: I'm not going to boycott blizzard. They've only released 5 games in their history, yet they've ALL been fantastic smash hits that i've loved. So I'm just going to go do the exact same thing that every other casual windows user on slashdot is going to do. I'm going to wait for a copy of it to hit kopykatz or morpheus and download it.
Nintendo of America Inc. (NOA) is providing this letter of notification pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, USC 17 1201(b) (for great justice take off every zig) and the US Customs ruling dated December 20, 2001, regarding the import, distribution and sale of the Flash Advance Linker. US Customs confirmed the Flash Advance Linker violates the DMCA and is subject to confiscation.
This notice is addressed to the agent designated by Zophar's Domain to receive notifications of claimed infringements, as reflected in the current records of the U.S. Copyright Office.
NOA has a good faith belief that someone set up us the bomb by distributing illegal imports of the Flash Advance Linker in violation of section 1201(b) of the DMCA and subject to seizure under 19 USC 1595a(c)(2)(c) by US Customs.
The e-commerce page offering the Flash Advance Linker for sale was found on your site at: http://www.zophar.net/store/items.phtml?gba-a cc
Nintendo demands that you immediately cease the importation, distribution and sale of the Flash Advance Linker and all your base are belong to us
The Flash Advance Linker appearing on Zophar.net has been identified by its title, description [and/or] depictions of associated artwork. Based on the information at its disposal on February 19, 2002, NOA believes that the statements in this notice are accurate and correctly describe the infringing nature and status of the infringing material.
Should you have any questions, please move zig, move zig move zig at the following address, telephone and fax numbers, and/or e-mail address:
Nintendo of America Inc. Attn: We get signal. What? 4820 Main screen turn on! Redmond, WA 98052 Telephone: 425-861-2187 Fax: 425-882-3585 E-mail: Noalegal@noa.nintendo.com
We look forward to working with you to immediately resolve this matter. You are on the way to destruction. You have no chance to survive, make your time.
Anyway I fear a country where people are given the constitutional right to own a firearm at the age of 12 but if you're caught smoking a harmless joint you'll go to jail.
Or where a gang of white police offers can be caught red handed on video tape beating a black man with billy clubs but they're set free to go.
Or where a forieng programmer can be thrown in jail for 5 months without a trial for writing a program that may cost a rich company a few dollars.
I'm sorry but I have to play devil's advocate here. This is not intentional flaimbait, just something that I've been realizing over the past few years. People spout rationalizations for illegal acts too easily.
Point one: Whether you like it or not, it's illegal to possess marijuana. Period. Calling it a harmless joint, joining NORML, pointing to various crackpot studies saying marijuana is actually great for your health doesn't change the fact that it is illegal to own. And I don't think there's a state in the union who allows a 12 year old to possess a firearm.
Point two: Rodney King was a criminal. There's no way of sugar coating this. I'm not trying to play the race card, those cops beat the fuck out of him, and were wrong for doing it. They should have been punished further. However, R. King had just broken the law, was evading arrest, assulting officers of the law, being violent, he was on crack or some hype up drug, the list goes on... He's lucky he didn't just get shot by the cops. But here again, one act does not justify another. The riots in L.A., killing several people and looting/destroying entire neighborhoods were no more right than the actions of the cops or the court. In fact, if there is a guage, probably less so, since they weren't even in the pretense of reaching an end, they were just a primal outlet of useless violence.
Point three: I'm a little hot and cold on this one, but the fact does remain that, however morally, ethically, or constitutionally right, the DMCA is a law. Johannsen wrote a program in Russia that was illegal in the U.S. No big deal. He brings it into the U.S. and demonstrates how to use it. Big deal. He broke the law, the stupid law, but still the law. Plus, being in jail for 5 months waiting on a trial is not particularly long. It's the time before bail is set or before arraignment that is the complaint.
Great men from Jefferson to Thoreau to MLKing have preached the righteousness of civil disobedience of unjust laws, and there is a place for this. However, realize that if you're breaking the law, you are subject to action as a result of your conduct. Note, YOUR conduct. As stated in an earlier post, you are responsible for your own actions. Justifying yourself in a Machivellian sense may make your act easier to swallow to yourself but it doesn't change the moral allignment of the act its self.
I actually started sending my junk to root@download.com - they actually pissed me off that bad. All I wanted was to download something inconsequential, and they've been a great resource in the past, but this time, I clicked "download" and it asked me for all kinds of demographic information, preferences, can we contact you, and it wouldn't let me get to the file unless it first went through that. Then I came to realize that the file wasn't even one that they cache on their servers, or that is on tucows or something! It was a link to the download page of the publisher. And not only that, but the link was BROKEN!
Needless to say, I was annoyed. Not so much that it changed my life, except now I get a little chuckle of someone looking through the root email and checking on bad cron outputs, or whatever, or looking for httpd error messages, and finding 19932 "get rich quick". I always check the contact me button, and all of the "list your interests" buttons
Dr. Evil: Back in the 60's, I developed a weather changing machine which was in essence a sophisticated heat beam which we called a 'laser.' Using these 'lasers' we'd punch a hole in the protective layer around the world which we called the 'ozone' layer. Slowly but surely ultraviolet rays would pour in, increasing the risk for skin cancer, that is...unless the world pays us a hefty ransom?
I upgraded my dual P2-450 to dual P3-850 last week. That seems to have fixed the Mozzila performance problems I was having under Linux (mainly long delays rendering pages).
In my mind, this is the problem. I want to run linux on my shitty computers, not on my box of doom. In my world, a dual p3-850 is more power than I would know what to do with, although if i remember correctly, the 850 is 100 mhz bus speed, the 800 was either,833, and 866 were 133 speed - I have an 800/133. Anyway, what I want to do is run linux on my k6-2 333 or heaven forbid my p1-100 and still be able to browse the web. Some of the nightly build footprints on mandrake have been huge - to the tune of using 100 megs of memory, or something. That's just bad programming for an OS that many people see as being the os for "the other other computer".
Linux community: don't forget that many people looking to switch to linux will want to put it on their 400 mhz boxes that they have recently replaced with the P4-2.2 Ghz box. Don't write code for the latter, write it for the former.
Slashdot Mirror
Senior tech 1: How could we make our life easier? ...
Senior tech 2: Well, we could get a mainframe and consolidate our major processes into one machine instead of using a variety of smaller, cheaper machines.
Senior tech 1: Sounds good, let's do that.
... the following day
Market analysist: Great idea, boys! How much does it cost?
Senior tech 1: About $46,000 in equipment and $8,000 in labor for setup.
Market analysist: Right. *checks budget, just for kicks* Well, we can approve everything but the budget increase. Get to work!
Yeah, that, and what is jeff doing up at 1:45 in the morning?
~z
hrm
is it bad if sshd has used about twice the time that httpsd has?
~z
no +1 bonus, off topic:
I just wanted to say i really admire your quote. Very classy of you. I have read LOTR about 12 times now, and actually i have a test on the silmarillion tomorrow in my science fiction / fantasy class - it's an english class - heroic fantasy: beowulf thru tolkien. Anyway, good work, and I'm happy with myself that I know exactly where that quote comes from.
Better to invest in laser propultion and linear magnetic launchers.
Or time machines =) Now, if we could just get the power equivilant of a supernova into something the size of... say... a VW bug...
~z
Unfortunately, people are so freaked out about anything with the word "nuclear" or "reaction" attached to it
News flash, public: The Sun, our source of life and energy, is "Nuclear". In fact, it's just one big "Reaction".
To quote TMBG, "The sun is a mass of incadescent gas, a firey nuclear furnace, where hydrogen is built into helium at temperatures of millions of degrees."
~z
Well, then. I'll put it this way. You have to agree to the terms and conditions when you sign up. They say "NO PORN and NO WAREZ". Beyond that, you can use up to however much of our 2 T-1's you want to. Obviously, it can't be unlimited. An OC 128 has a limited amount of bandwidth. The point is we don't charge based on bandwidth useage, our business model is based on disk useage.
A better term would have been un-metered. As in, we don't say "you can have 3GB / month".
It's a deal where if you set it up so that your credit card is auto-billed, you get the discount. We figure it saves us postage and paperwork, so we can use that to hook the customers up. But before we can auto bill your credit card, we have to get written authorization, i.e. mail or fax. If you want to do the automatic account set up online, where you get setup almost instantly, you'll have to fill out the form and fax it to us later this week, and that means paying the $10 for the first month. We'll credit back the $2 for the first month (s) you have paid, once we get the authorization form, and we'll change your recurring fee to $8.
If you want to wait, you could call us on monday. I forgot the 1800 number, but the LD number is 540 951 9404.
As far as I know, that deal is good until the end of time, your recurring charge becomes $8/month. If you want a more firm answer, feel free to talk to the owner of the company, he'll be there sometime around 11:30 EST. There's only 5 employees, so you get personalized service - we're on a first name basis with a few of our clients, and we know quite a few more just by recognizing their account name.
Anyway, I'm sorry we can't do it online, but you see, since the promotion is linked to autobilling of a credit card, we really just *can't* do it without a written authorization. We're a laid back business, but you can't afford to do things without paperwork.
eh, at the expense of having pissed off potential customers, it's $10/mo, but if you auto bill the credit card it's $8/mo. But, the same thing works for the solaris accounts - you can get solaris hosting w/ a 1 meg account (for small web pages =) for 4.95/mo, and if you autopay with a card, it's 2.95. Also, if you prepay a year, you get free domain registration.
But rock on, word of mouth rules =).
heh
/me goes to watch bwm spike...
Mirror site up here.
That url is
http://www.netmar.com/~will/TiquitBrochure.pdf
Notes on mirror: ONE. Brochure is property of Tiquit designs, or whoever that company is. It's not mine.
TWO: If you're gonna hammer my server, sign up for webhosting with my company - www.netmar.com. Linux web hosting for $8/month, w/ 100 MB of space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited email aliases, PHP, Perl, C Cgi's, MySQL, etc.
~z
as far as I understood it, the movie bombed but sony bailed them out, giving them like 6 million or something, just cause they were going tits up, and that was the major reason for the sony PS loyalty.
For anyone that doesn't know about the Atlantis scandal, they didn't just "not make up" the story of atlantis, basically they ripped the movie from Nadia and gave it a different title.
It's hard to believe, but see for yourself: Nadia V. Atlantis
~z
hey!
we support IMAP.
who knew?
~zero
nope =)
Actually, the nick (obviously from hackers) was from back when i knew jack schitt about computers, and i picked it to use on IRC when hanging out. I know it's lame, but i'm too lazy to change it. Anyway,
The company is Netmar Web Hosting. The web page is nasty, but the service is good. We're working on a new layout - beta.netmar.com - but.... ya know.... anyway,
Linux web hosting $10/mo, unlimited bandwidth, 100 MB space, unlimited email aliases, PHP, MySQL, Perl, etc.
~Z
I don't think we support IMAP. We do have a VERY aggressive spam filter that checks subjects, associations of words in subjects, and senders (actually we have 2 mail servers, one filtered and the other with no filter and no size limit).
Now that this article has died down, i'll link to the page. It's netmar web hosting. This seriously isn't a bandwidth issue - we have 2 T-1's from teir one providers. It's just... go to the page, and you'll see. We're working on new site design - beta.netmar.com - but anyway...
Linux hosting for $10/mo, 100 MB, unlimited traffic/bandwidth, unlimited email aliases, PHP3, MySQL, Perl, etc etc. The linux box is a P-4 1.5 Ghz. If you want solaris hosting, or dedicated hosting we do that too. The solaris hosting is more expensive for space, but it's on a mad fast server (300 Mhz Ultra 2 sparc X 4).
Anyway, later, dood!
~Z
Agreed.
.aliasmap file work? can you create a MySQL database for me?) and while it's silent, we work on improving our site's image (notice i'm not linking to it... this isn't because i'm trying to be noble and not shamelessly plug my company, i am, but i'm embarrassed by the current homepage).
I'm working for a small web hosting company as a Unix network admin, 2 days a week, for $8/hr, while I go to school and work on my degree the other 3 days a week.
For a network admin, that sucks. However, I love my job. There are only 5 employees, including the owner, and he's the oldest, being 27. We're all in college. I go to work wearing jeans, sandals, and a doors shirt. I answer the phone, fix people's stupid stuff (how does a
Anyway, before i got lost, my point was working for a small company is the way to go, even if it's less money. The relationship you have with your peers and the lack of red tape is worth it in terms of saving your sanity. Trust me, i used to work for the man.
~z
see, the thing is I liken this to the new river free press, where I live. I'm a fairly liberal person. But this news monthly puts me to shame. It is more left field than any politician I can think of. Anyway, in December's issue they had a list of products to boycott this christmas season. Some of them were legit, but some of them were outrageous. Example: Boycott everything made by Kraft Foods because the cows they milk for cheese get fed Bovine Growth Hormone. Now, point one: my girlfriend is in vet school, she has a degree in animal science specializing in beef production. According to her, BGH has *never* been proven to have ill side effects in humans or animals, but just in case, there's a period surrounding milking/ slaughter that they can't feed them BGH. Point two: The new river free press is read by *AT LEAST* 7,000 people. Even if EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM told 100 other people, and 700,000 people boycotted kraft, it wouldn't hurt them. You know why? Market share. how many of these brands do you buy?.
It's the same thing with blizzard. That was my point. A boycott would do no good. Even if everyone on slashdot participated.
It won't do anything.
/. reader's bubble, but the collective group of us boycotting a game will do *nothing* to hurt blizard.
I hate to burst the
Let's think about this: Slashdot has about a quarter million users. Of these, about 1/3 are zealots who don't run windows, not even for the little pleasures. Of the remaining, i would suspect fewer than 1/5 of them *EVER* buy software because they feel damnit it should be free (beer). And after that, I would say that 10% of the remaining windows users who don't pirate software actually play blizard games but would be still willing to participate in a boycot. The rest will go on buying the game anyway because it's going to be a good game.
So we're left with 3000 people that will take part in a boycot against the DCMA and Blizzard simultaneously. Oh Ouch. How many copies of diablo II have sold?
Well here's a guess. 2.75 Million copies. And again,
how about the expansion? Another million copies. Boycotting them will do no good.
Now, I was trying to figure out why they did this, and I was thinking "oh this is easy, there's a charge for playing on battle.net, that's their revenue model. But on battle.net i found this:
Battle.net provides an arena for Blizzard customers to chat, challenge opponents and initiate multiplayer games, at no cost to the user. There is no hourly or monthly fee to use Battle.net, and there is no startup charge. To play a supported game over the Internet with other players worldwide, simply select the Battle.net option from within the game.
So what gives, blizard? How is this helping you? Are there ads in battle.net? Do you use it for free market research somehow? Do you simply want to track ALL of the online blizard games going on? Throw me a bone here.
But let's be serious: I'm not going to boycott blizzard. They've only released 5 games in their history, yet they've ALL been fantastic smash hits that i've loved. So I'm just going to go do the exact same thing that every other casual windows user on slashdot is going to do. I'm going to wait for a copy of it to hit kopykatz or morpheus and download it.
Boo fucking hoo, boycot.
~z
Dear Sam Michaels:
a cc
How are you gentlemen?
Nintendo of America Inc. (NOA) is providing this letter of notification pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, USC 17 1201(b) (for great justice take off every zig) and the US Customs ruling dated December 20, 2001, regarding the import, distribution and sale of the Flash Advance Linker. US Customs confirmed the Flash Advance Linker violates the DMCA and is subject to confiscation.
This notice is addressed to the agent designated by Zophar's Domain to receive notifications of claimed infringements, as reflected in the current records of the U.S. Copyright Office.
NOA has a good faith belief that someone set up us the bomb by distributing illegal imports of the Flash Advance Linker in violation of section 1201(b) of the DMCA and subject to seizure under 19 USC 1595a(c)(2)(c) by US Customs.
The e-commerce page offering the Flash Advance Linker for sale was found on your site at:
http://www.zophar.net/store/items.phtml?gba-
Nintendo demands that you immediately cease the importation, distribution and sale of the Flash Advance Linker and all your base are belong to us
The Flash Advance Linker appearing on Zophar.net has been identified by its title, description [and/or] depictions of associated artwork. Based on the information at its disposal on February 19, 2002, NOA believes that the statements in this notice are accurate and correctly describe the infringing nature and status of the infringing material.
Should you have any questions, please move zig, move zig move zig at the following address, telephone and fax numbers, and/or e-mail address:
Nintendo of America Inc.
Attn: We get signal. What?
4820 Main screen turn on!
Redmond, WA 98052
Telephone: 425-861-2187
Fax: 425-882-3585
E-mail: Noalegal@noa.nintendo.com
We look forward to working with you to immediately resolve this matter. You are on the way to destruction. You have no chance to survive, make your time.
Sincerely,
NINTENDO OF AMERICA INC.
Anyway I fear a country where people are given the constitutional right to own a firearm at the age of 12 but if you're caught smoking a harmless joint you'll go to jail.
Or where a gang of white police offers can be caught red handed on video tape beating a black man with billy clubs but they're set free to go.
Or where a forieng programmer can be thrown in jail for 5 months without a trial for writing a program that may cost a rich company a few dollars.
I'm sorry but I have to play devil's advocate here. This is not intentional flaimbait, just something that I've been realizing over the past few years. People spout rationalizations for illegal acts too easily.
Point one: Whether you like it or not, it's illegal to possess marijuana. Period. Calling it a harmless joint, joining NORML, pointing to various crackpot studies saying marijuana is actually great for your health doesn't change the fact that it is illegal to own. And I don't think there's a state in the union who allows a 12 year old to possess a firearm.
Point two: Rodney King was a criminal. There's no way of sugar coating this. I'm not trying to play the race card, those cops beat the fuck out of him, and were wrong for doing it. They should have been punished further. However, R. King had just broken the law, was evading arrest, assulting officers of the law, being violent, he was on crack or some hype up drug, the list goes on... He's lucky he didn't just get shot by the cops. But here again, one act does not justify another. The riots in L.A., killing several people and looting/destroying entire neighborhoods were no more right than the actions of the cops or the court. In fact, if there is a guage, probably less so, since they weren't even in the pretense of reaching an end, they were just a primal outlet of useless violence.
Point three: I'm a little hot and cold on this one, but the fact does remain that, however morally, ethically, or constitutionally right, the DMCA is a law. Johannsen wrote a program in Russia that was illegal in the U.S. No big deal. He brings it into the U.S. and demonstrates how to use it. Big deal. He broke the law, the stupid law, but still the law. Plus, being in jail for 5 months waiting on a trial is not particularly long. It's the time before bail is set or before arraignment that is the complaint.
Great men from Jefferson to Thoreau to MLKing have preached the righteousness of civil disobedience of unjust laws, and there is a place for this. However, realize that if you're breaking the law, you are subject to action as a result of your conduct. Note, YOUR conduct. As stated in an earlier post, you are responsible for your own actions. Justifying yourself in a Machivellian sense may make your act easier to swallow to yourself but it doesn't change the moral allignment of the act its self.
~z
Knock Knock.
Who's there?
Ghestapo.
Ghestapo who?
VEE ASK DE QUESTIONS HERE
What did the german clock maker say to the broken clock?
Vee have vays of making you tock
Thank you.
I actually started sending my junk to root@download.com - they actually pissed me off that bad. All I wanted was to download something inconsequential, and they've been a great resource in the past, but this time, I clicked "download" and it asked me for all kinds of demographic information, preferences, can we contact you, and it wouldn't let me get to the file unless it first went through that. Then I came to realize that the file wasn't even one that they cache on their servers, or that is on tucows or something! It was a link to the download page of the publisher. And not only that, but the link was BROKEN!
Needless to say, I was annoyed. Not so much that it changed my life, except now I get a little chuckle of someone looking through the root email and checking on bad cron outputs, or whatever, or looking for httpd error messages, and finding 19932 "get rich quick". I always check the contact me button, and all of the "list your interests" buttons
~z
Dr. Evil: Back in the 60's, I developed a weather changing machine which was in essence a sophisticated heat beam which we called a 'laser.' Using these 'lasers' we'd punch a hole in the protective layer around the world which we called the 'ozone' layer. Slowly but surely ultraviolet rays would pour in, increasing the risk for skin cancer, that is...unless the world pays us a hefty ransom?
No. 2: Ahem....that also already has happened.
Dr. Evil: Shit!
I upgraded my dual P2-450 to dual P3-850 last week. That seems to have fixed the Mozzila performance problems I was having under Linux (mainly long delays rendering pages).
In my mind, this is the problem. I want to run linux on my shitty computers, not on my box of doom. In my world, a dual p3-850 is more power than I would know what to do with, although if i remember correctly, the 850 is 100 mhz bus speed, the 800 was either,833, and 866 were 133 speed - I have an 800/133. Anyway, what I want to do is run linux on my k6-2 333 or heaven forbid my p1-100 and still be able to browse the web. Some of the nightly build footprints on mandrake have been huge - to the tune of using 100 megs of memory, or something. That's just bad programming for an OS that many people see as being the os for "the other other computer".
Linux community: don't forget that many people looking to switch to linux will want to put it on their 400 mhz boxes that they have recently replaced with the P4-2.2 Ghz box. Don't write code for the latter, write it for the former.
~z