Perhaps I should be more clear. I didn't mean that less-violent gun owners are more likely to take classes, I meant that simply the experience of owning a gun is an educational one that teaches respect for the weapon and the lives of all people concerned. In some areas (including the one I live in) it is mandatory to take an NRA safety course before purchasing a firearm. I am in support of these programs. You should be certified fit to use a gun just like you should be certified fit to drive a car.
Yes, perhaps if we make drugs illegal, our kids will NEVER get their hands on that evil marijuana! I'm sorry, you emotionalist gun control idiots piss me off.
In the US, every citizen is guaranteed a fundamental right to own a firearm. The founding fathers realized that fundamental rights MUST REMAIN ABSOLUTE, or you might as well have no rights at all.
In the US, almost half of all households have a gun in them. It is therefore statistically ludicrous to assign severely abnormal traits to gun owners.
Studies have shown that gun owners who are properly trained are likely to be less violent than non gun owners.
All instances of children accidentally shooting themselves or each other is the result of irresponsible parents failing to properly secure their guns and teach their children proper respect for them (Yes, children CAN learn respect for things, you liberals have a way of treating kids like emotional and intellectual retards)
In the past 30 years, the number of firearms owned by Americans have increased from 122 million to more than 220 million. During that time, violent crime, school violence, and domestic violence rates have decreased.
Agreed. There is nothing wrong with going to an expert in a field and asking advice for sources, etc. The expert person is just another source of information. Getting someone else to do work for you is obviously wrong. But if someone came up to me and said, "I'm doing a paper about cryptography, where should I start learning?" I'd say, "Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier." What's wrong with that?
There was also a distrubing article on Salon about how White House approved anti-drug TV scripts earned TV networks taxpayer money. Government controlled content is scary, especially when the ONDCP is invading my living room spreading propoganda about the evils of that Satanic substance, marajuana.
I think it's important to remember that censorship has many forms. In the US it's pretty hard for the government to get away with banning something altogether, but that doesn't stop them from abusing taxpayer money to alter things like TV programs, the product of a supposed private corporation, to spread their "helpful" messages.
I find the the actions of your two organizations over the past few weeks to be outrageous and unjustified. Further, what you have done infringes upon the rights of the people involved, without any evidence to prove the plausibility or necessity of the actions you have taken. Let me summarize exactly what I am angry about.
On March 17th, Pink Paper, a competitor to Outcast Magazine, wrote to Outcast and NetBenefit informing them that if Outcast ever published anything defamatory, both parties would be sued. In response, NetBenefit suspended Outcast's web account.
It may not seem obvious to you as to why this is horribly morally imprudent. NetBenefit, by suspending Outcast's account, has effectively taken part in a censorship action against material that _has not even been published._ While I realize that UK citizens are not guaranteed the same rights to free speech as Americans, there is no justification for censorship of any sort, and the UK has had (up until recent months) a fairly liberal policy towards free speech.
This is worse than bookburning; It's like burning the printing press. While I understand that NetBenefit is "playing it safe," I am horrified to learn the true character of the people who run this company.
People of character stand up for what is right. Yes, that includes taking risks. I would, however, rather purchase services from an organization that demonstrated moral competency than one who is afraid of such an absurd litigious action. As a purveyor of Internet services, you are familiar with the open, anti-censorship, and indeed, often rebelious nature of the Internet community. Your actions have been a major disservice to that community.
I demand that you reconsider your decisions, and examine the consequences that they might bring.
AFAIK Darwin is the only BSD that runs on top of Mach. Anyway, if you get the CD or download it, you can install it and run it by itself. Darwin is an OS in its own right; you just don't get the cool Apple stuff like Quartz, Carbon and Coccoa.
The GUI is based on Quartz, a way-cool vector based rendering engine that came out of NeXTStep. There is no X at all in MacOS X, although Jon Carmack has worked on porting XFree (which already runs on LinuxPPC) to Darwin
Well, Firewire in it's current state would not be good for making large networks, as you can only have 63 devices on a single bus (but a firewire switch wouldn't be that hard to invent, I suppose.) Besides that, it's easier, because node addresses and such are handled by the protocol, so no messing with IP addresses and subnets. It also has QoS features, meaning it can deliver broadcast quality video in real-time while saving less important stuff for later.
Hello. Dumb Mac Fuck here. PowerPC chips are far better than x86 in design. It's not the chips that are more expensive, it's the Macs. But of course, PowerPC chips are made by IBM and Motorola, not Apple, so you can build your own PowerPC box from a PPC Open Platform Board any day of the week.
For massive floating point calculations I would reccomend a PowerPC running Linux or BSD or an Alpha over Intel or AMD any day. x86 simply sucks - that's all there is to it.
Why, pray tell, would putting MS out of business destroy the economy?
Well perhaps "destroy" is a little overdramatic - but the fact remains that MS has purposefully made many, many, many people, and many, many corporations and government agencies dependent on their products and services. The cost to switch to a different product, even a free one, would be ENOURMOUS in terms of product, retraining, restructuring, etc.
Simply imagine if all the telcos went out of business one day and shut themselves off. The economy would go to shit, because you can't do business without telephones. So the government has a vested interest in keeping MS alive, even though they don't like them.
Microsoft's profitability (or lack there of) isn't of any relevance (except to the extent that its absurd profit margins demonstrate corruption of the free market). Antitrust laws are designed to protect consumers, not companies.
Anti-trust laws are designed to protect consumers, but that does not mean they are designed to put corporations out of business. When the government was working out ways to break up the telephone monopoly, they realized that local telcos, which are expensive to operate, would no longer be subsidzed by long-distance telephone service, which is cheap to operate, and the only way this would resolve itself is by massive increases in local telephone rates, which is what happened. The government could have "punished" them by sticking a rate-cap on the RBOC's, but that would have put them out of business.
So what's the point? People need telephones. Putting the RBOC's out of business would therefor be pointless. Likewise, people need software. Especially Microsoft software, since it's familiar to most people and it breaks everything else. Putting MS out of business would destroy the economy. So opening the source code is a no-no.
I'm perfectly aware of the differences between freedom and things that cost no money. What does this have to do with anything addressed in my original post? I still haven't seen an answer to my question, which is why so many people here seem to think the Open-Source model is the next Messiah.
Um, if they were to open the source, then how, pray tell, would Microsoft make money? Their business model depends on being a closed-source company, and, regardless of what the Stallman-worshipping source code Nazis say, there is nothing morally unnacceptable about that. I don't understand why some people here believe open-sourcing everything and its uncle will solve all the world's problems. Could someone enlighten me?
This was a poor design decision from the get-go and only exists as a legacy feature. There are other ways to eject disks which fit much better with the MacOS interface model, such as clicking on the disk and choosing "Eject" from a menu.
While I agree that dragging the disk into the trash is not the best way to impliment the metaphor, I have not known any people who have trouble with this concept once it is explained to them. (And I have tought many people how to use MacOS.)
Every Mac ever built with a floppy drive will attempt to boot from a floppy if there is one in there first. If the floppy is non-bootable, it auto-ejects it and looks for something else to boot from, usually whatever has been set as the boot-device in PRAM.
Maybe I need to get out less, but whats this Mac Unix stuff? Is the new MAC os somehow related to a un*x flavor?
Yes. MacOS X (pronounced "ten" not "ex") is based on BSD running on top of the Mach microkernel. Apple's first major experiment with Mach was MkLinux, which Apple has since abandoned. The Mach+BSD part is called Darwin. It's free an open source. Darwin is a complete OS in its own right, and can run by itself. It has no GUI, though John Carmack has written a port of XFree to work with it. The rest of MacOS X is closed-source. It includes Quartz, which is a way-cool completely vector-based display engine for the GUI. It has Cocoa, a native Java API, Carbon, really left over from Rhapsody, which allows classic apps to quickly take advantage of OS X features. The classic MacOS 9 environment can boot in a window as a single process, and you can run classic apps side by side with OS X apps (rootless, as it were.) More info about the higher-level stuff is available at Apple's MacOS X site.
What are you talking about? There has been no judgment. This type of thing goes on all the time. Microsoft and the DOJ have been given time to make a deal, a settlement, if you will. Failing that by the deadline, the judge makes his ruling. Regular criminal cases have deals, too. It's called pleabargaining. What's your point?
That was sort of my point - I know not everyone in NC is a religious fundy - I was trying to make a (seemingly humerous) analogy that you can't judge the character of a nation from the actions of a very small minority. Note the:) in my original post.
The United States of America may tout it's capitalist infranstructure as the Glorious Saviour of Mankind, but they are closer to communists and fascists than many of their citizens are willing to admint to themselves.
Ahem, please don't draw conclusions about the United States based on the actions of some Bible-thumping Jesus freaks in North Carolina. There is a little bit of civilization in this country - you just have to know where to look.:)
Yep, the two stories are completely different. It could be a seperate suit altogether (your link refers to a "group of instructors," or it might be the same guy suing both Ryan and the school. Go figure.
But it is neither Teacherreview.com nor the people writing the graffiti that are getting sued. It is the college, for linking to teacherreview.com, that is the target of the lawsuit.
Where did you get this information? According to the article, it is quite clear that the target of the suit is teacherreview.com, not the school:
Daniel Curzon-Brown, a professor at San Francisco City College, is one of the teachers reviewed on the site. He has filed a lawsuit against the site's webmaster claiming defamation and emotional distress.
Have you read something that tells a different story?
Slashdot Mirror
Perhaps I should be more clear. I didn't mean that less-violent gun owners are more likely to take classes, I meant that simply the experience of owning a gun is an educational one that teaches respect for the weapon and the lives of all people concerned. In some areas (including the one I live in) it is mandatory to take an NRA safety course before purchasing a firearm. I am in support of these programs. You should be certified fit to use a gun just like you should be certified fit to drive a car.
- In the US, every citizen is guaranteed a fundamental right to own a firearm. The founding fathers realized that fundamental rights MUST REMAIN ABSOLUTE, or you might as well have no rights at all.
- In the US, almost half of all households have a gun in them. It is therefore statistically ludicrous to assign severely abnormal traits to gun owners.
- Studies have shown that gun owners who are properly trained are likely to be less violent than non gun owners.
- All instances of children accidentally shooting themselves or each other is the result of irresponsible parents failing to properly secure their guns and teach their children proper respect for them (Yes, children CAN learn respect for things, you liberals have a way of treating kids like emotional and intellectual retards)
- In the past 30 years, the number of firearms owned by Americans have increased from 122 million to more than 220 million. During that time, violent crime, school violence, and domestic violence rates have decreased.
Some more things to learn- Taking aim at Gun Control
- Why gun control is wrong (by Yours Truly)
- GunCite - Everything you need to know about gun control and why it's wrong.
- Ethics from the barrel of a gun: what bearing arms teaches about the good life - Written by the same dude who brought you The Cathedral and the Bazzaar
Thank you for listening to my rant. You can go about your business now.Agreed. There is nothing wrong with going to an expert in a field and asking advice for sources, etc. The expert person is just another source of information. Getting someone else to do work for you is obviously wrong. But if someone came up to me and said, "I'm doing a paper about cryptography, where should I start learning?" I'd say, "Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier." What's wrong with that?
Uhhhh....no, WTF are you talking about? I mirror DeCSS because I think people should have it.
I think it's important to remember that censorship has many forms. In the US it's pretty hard for the government to get away with banning something altogether, but that doesn't stop them from abusing taxpayer money to alter things like TV programs, the product of a supposed private corporation, to spread their "helpful" messages.
Here's my letter, feel free to cut and paste.
Dear NetBenefit and Pink Paper
I find the the actions of your two organizations over the past few weeks
to be outrageous and unjustified. Further, what you have done infringes
upon the rights of the people involved, without any evidence to prove the
plausibility or necessity of the actions you have taken. Let me summarize
exactly what I am angry about.
On March 17th, Pink Paper, a competitor to Outcast Magazine, wrote to
Outcast and NetBenefit informing them that if Outcast ever published
anything defamatory, both parties would be sued. In response, NetBenefit
suspended Outcast's web account.
It may not seem obvious to you as to why this is horribly morally
imprudent. NetBenefit, by suspending Outcast's account, has effectively
taken part in a censorship action against material that _has not even been
published._ While I realize that UK citizens are not guaranteed the same
rights to free speech as Americans, there is no justification for
censorship of any sort, and the UK has had (up until recent months) a
fairly liberal policy towards free speech.
This is worse than bookburning; It's like burning the printing
press. While I understand that NetBenefit is "playing it safe," I am
horrified to learn the true character of the people who run this company.
People of character stand up for what is right. Yes, that includes taking
risks. I would, however, rather purchase services from an organization
that demonstrated moral competency than one who is afraid of such
an absurd litigious action. As a purveyor of Internet services, you are
familiar with the open, anti-censorship, and indeed, often rebelious
nature of the Internet community. Your actions have been a major
disservice to that community.
I demand that you reconsider your decisions, and examine the consequences
that they might bring.
Respectfully,
Mike Friedman
AFAIK Darwin is the only BSD that runs on top of Mach. Anyway, if you get the CD or download it, you can install it and run it by itself. Darwin is an OS in its own right; you just don't get the cool Apple stuff like Quartz, Carbon and Coccoa.
The GUI is based on Quartz, a way-cool vector based rendering engine that came out of NeXTStep. There is no X at all in MacOS X, although Jon Carmack has worked on porting XFree (which already runs on LinuxPPC) to Darwin
Not only that, but it was written in C on a Powerbook! :)
Well, Firewire in it's current state would not be good for making large networks, as you can only have 63 devices on a single bus (but a firewire switch wouldn't be that hard to invent, I suppose.) Besides that, it's easier, because node addresses and such are handled by the protocol, so no messing with IP addresses and subnets. It also has QoS features, meaning it can deliver broadcast quality video in real-time while saving less important stuff for later.
For massive floating point calculations I would reccomend a PowerPC running Linux or BSD or an Alpha over Intel or AMD any day. x86 simply sucks - that's all there is to it.
Well perhaps "destroy" is a little overdramatic - but the fact remains that MS has purposefully made many, many, many people, and many, many corporations and government agencies dependent on their products and services. The cost to switch to a different product, even a free one, would be ENOURMOUS in terms of product, retraining, restructuring, etc.
Simply imagine if all the telcos went out of business one day and shut themselves off. The economy would go to shit, because you can't do business without telephones. So the government has a vested interest in keeping MS alive, even though they don't like them.
Anti-trust laws are designed to protect consumers, but that does not mean they are designed to put corporations out of business. When the government was working out ways to break up the telephone monopoly, they realized that local telcos, which are expensive to operate, would no longer be subsidzed by long-distance telephone service, which is cheap to operate, and the only way this would resolve itself is by massive increases in local telephone rates, which is what happened. The government could have "punished" them by sticking a rate-cap on the RBOC's, but that would have put them out of business.
So what's the point? People need telephones. Putting the RBOC's out of business would therefor be pointless. Likewise, people need software. Especially Microsoft software, since it's familiar to most people and it breaks everything else. Putting MS out of business would destroy the economy. So opening the source code is a no-no.
I'm perfectly aware of the differences between freedom and things that cost no money. What does this have to do with anything addressed in my original post? I still haven't seen an answer to my question, which is why so many people here seem to think the Open-Source model is the next Messiah.
Um, if they were to open the source, then how, pray tell, would Microsoft make money? Their business model depends on being a closed-source company, and, regardless of what the Stallman-worshipping source code Nazis say, there is nothing morally unnacceptable about that. I don't understand why some people here believe open-sourcing everything and its uncle will solve all the world's problems. Could someone enlighten me?
While I agree that dragging the disk into the trash is not the best way to impliment the metaphor, I have not known any people who have trouble with this concept once it is explained to them. (And I have tought many people how to use MacOS.)
You're probably right - I forgot about A/UX.
Every Mac ever built with a floppy drive will attempt to boot from a floppy if there is one in there first. If the floppy is non-bootable, it auto-ejects it and looks for something else to boot from, usually whatever has been set as the boot-device in PRAM.
Yes. MacOS X (pronounced "ten" not "ex") is based on BSD running on top of the Mach microkernel. Apple's first major experiment with Mach was MkLinux, which Apple has since abandoned. The Mach+BSD part is called Darwin. It's free an open source. Darwin is a complete OS in its own right, and can run by itself. It has no GUI, though John Carmack has written a port of XFree to work with it. The rest of MacOS X is closed-source. It includes Quartz, which is a way-cool completely vector-based display engine for the GUI. It has Cocoa, a native Java API, Carbon, really left over from Rhapsody, which allows classic apps to quickly take advantage of OS X features. The classic MacOS 9 environment can boot in a window as a single process, and you can run classic apps side by side with OS X apps (rootless, as it were.) More info about the higher-level stuff is available at Apple's MacOS X site.
What are you talking about? There has been no judgment. This type of thing goes on all the time. Microsoft and the DOJ have been given time to make a deal, a settlement, if you will. Failing that by the deadline, the judge makes his ruling. Regular criminal cases have deals, too. It's called pleabargaining. What's your point?
That was sort of my point - I know not everyone in NC is a religious fundy - I was trying to make a (seemingly humerous) analogy that you can't judge the character of a nation from the actions of a very small minority. Note the :) in my original post.
Ahem, please don't draw conclusions about the United States based on the actions of some Bible-thumping Jesus freaks in North Carolina. There is a little bit of civilization in this country - you just have to know where to look. :)
Yep, the two stories are completely different. It could be a seperate suit altogether (your link refers to a "group of instructors," or it might be the same guy suing both Ryan and the school. Go figure.
Where did you get this information? According to the article, it is quite clear that the target of the suit is teacherreview.com, not the school:
Daniel Curzon-Brown, a professor at San Francisco City College, is one of the teachers reviewed on the site. He has filed a lawsuit against the site's webmaster claiming defamation and emotional distress.
Have you read something that tells a different story?