In my home country all my discount cards are anonymous. I just refuse to give my personal data. Works all the time.
Pay cash (and don't buy licquor, beer or wine, lest you be required to show ID to prove your age) and you'll be alright.
Pay by check or creditcard, and they'll have cross-referenced you to your discount card perminently. Buy alcohol or cigarettes and get carded, and they may (or may not) cross-reference your identity to your discount card.
Here in Illinois, 50% of those on death row were proven by genetic analysis to be innocent of the crimes of which they had been convicted.
50%.
One in two people sentenced to death had been wrongly convicted, and were only exonerated pre-mortem because they happen to have enough appeals in place to postpone their executions until a technology came along able to prove they weren't the culprits. These people were in some cases convicted on evidence a hell of a lot more flimsy than a Safeway Club Card purchasing record, and they were sentenced to die.
The numbers were so horrific that our Governor at the time, a Republican who until then had supported the death penalty, placed a moratorium on all further executions in the state, and rightly so.
Of course, this "new" technology, like any other, is falable, and in a case like this one (where everything's gone up in smoke, and where the accused lived there anyway) entirely inapplicable, so lest someone think "but now we have this new panacea, so it won't happen anymore" I can only say, don't kid yourself.
Justice in America is appallingly hap-hazard. Police are lazy. They latch onto a theory they like and make the facts fit their expectations. The lose, damage, and misinterpret evidence all the time. District Attorney's persue careers based on rates of conviction, and often have little concern for the actual guilt or innocence of those they are convicting (there have been a couple in recent memory here in Chicago who have been proven to knowingly convict innocent people, in at least one case because he was more interested in putting the scapegoat behind bars and looking good to an angry public than in serving justice).
Having served on a couple of juries, I can say from my own experience that juries are faced with severely filtered and diluted information, outright misinformation, and a great deal of emotional manipulation from both sides. Their odds of getting something right don't seem to be much higher than what we would get if we simply flipped a coin to determine guilt or innocence.
I understand people who break and run when accused of a crime they didn't commit. The prisons are full of people wrongly convicted, and the streets with people who got away scot-free (and of course the opposite is also true, the prisons are also full of guilty people correctly convicted, and the streets with people justly acquited). It is an utter crapshoot as to whether or not you are correctly found guilty or notguilty, or incorrectly found notguilty or guilty, and this guy got incredibly lucky.
It even talks about leaving the UN. I don't see how it could offend anyone so much. Maybe next time the author will be more politcally correct in his examples.
I hope not. The world is ill with political correctness. We need to be able to talk about issues, in any manner we like, without fear of reprisal.
The new CorrectThink/PoliticalCorrectness coming from the right is even more frightening than that which came from the left... not because of its contents (although one could make a strong argument for that: elevating the right's propensity for living in denial of Bush's machinations WRT Iraq to political correctness is far more sinister than elevating anti-sexism and anti-racism to the same level, though IMHO both are unhelpful), but because of its ever widening scope, touching every aspect of life, and every aspect of politics from micro-managed day-to-day minutia of Bush's latest behavior to general issues of philosophy and lifestyle, in ways the left thankfully never dreamed.
People on both the right and the left should be very politically incorrect, and if a few partisans on either side get offended, so much the better. We need straight, frank dialogue, and an ability to express opinion without fear of political, professional, and financial reprisal. That is, after all, what the founding father's meant by "freedom of speech," not the corporate muzzling we have today.
I can hear the right whining now: "We have freedom of speech, but freedom of speech has consiquences" (paraphrasing Baby Bush).
By that definition, Communist Russia had freedom of speech. You could say anything you like, but freedom of speech had consiquences... like landing in Guantanamo... oops, I mean the Gulag.
Really, the only expression that should be forbidden is one written in FORTRAN. *ducks!*
Yeah, I noticed that too. He seems to be arguing that removing his hand from the keyboard to click on the mouse makes him a faster typist. Patently absurd.
You are either being deliberately obtuse, or your IQ has fallen into single digits.
Activities which require one hand on the mouse are faster and simpler to do than activities which require you to use one hand on the mouse and another on the keyboard, pecking out keys that don't generally fall into one's typing pattern. Now granted, one can adjust one's typing pattern to the new requirement (and stop pecking), but even so the point remains: an action that requires two hands is inherently more complex than an action that requires one. That is the difference between sensible mice used by every other system on the planet, and the abortion that is the Apple one-button mouse.
I'm glad to see Linux adoption by other countries' governments -- yes, even their militaries -- but the title to this story is just ridiculous. The idea that FOSS can "bridge" the staggering gulf between rich and poor in India just beggars belief. Let's not fool ourselves by pretending that Linux means anything to the citizens of India beyond the elite.
Clearly you do not understand Architectures of Control and how they affect not only our daily lives, but the daily lives of everyone on the planet.
Copyright is an architecture of control, empowering publishers at the expense of writers (despite what the wording of the constitution implies) and readers, musicians and listeners, etc. It allows a cartel, and in some places government, to keep a very tight reign on most aspects of culture... certainly in the context of mass media involving any copying and/or distribution of artistic works.
Patents are an architecture of control, allowing cartels to own a stranglehold on most proven and emergent technologies. Occasionally the odd invention will slip through and change the world... even more occasionally a government will nationalize an invention and throw open the doors of innovation to all (the best example is the US Government's seizure of the Wright Brother's aeroplane patent during World War II to stimulate innovation and advancement, in a very successful effort to catch up with the Europeans in aviation).
There are others architectures of control, but these two limit knowledge and expression, the two most important things to the self-empowerment of any group of people, be they peasants in the rice paddies of backwoods Asia or tech-savvy cyberpunks in downtown New York.
Stallman's GPL is the first, and by far the most successful, hack on the architecture of control known as Copyright, reversing its role from one of restrictive encumberance to one of empowerment, and as such has been wildly successful beyond anyone's expectations.
That a workable system (GNU/Linux) exists that can empower the engineers and technicians of an entire country, indeed all of the developing world, cannot be overstated. This is the first step toward building modern economies, using modern technologies, that don't ship currency wholesale out of the developing economy and into the pockets of Microsoft.
This is huge, and the ripple effects will most certainly help improve the lives of even the most destitute peasants, if for no other reason than more money in the local economy means a bigger local economy, which in turn means more wealth and capital flowing, i.e. more opportunity and a decrase in poverty.
Maybe in a few decades...
So, in other words Linux can help bridge the staggering gulf between rich and poor. You contradict your very own comment... or are you saying solutions which take time and don't come to fruition in a short time are by definition "rediculous."
Hint: none of these problems will be solved in a day, or even a year. But free software (and the paradigms of a public commons in technology and, perhaps, other fundamental infrastructures of society it fosters) is already having a positive impact, and the trends will only accelerate.
Unless, of course, US style software patents become the world norm. Then the Architectures of Control will close the gap Stallman's GPL and other, similiar licenses have opened, and free software will become a memory (and social justice, an impossible dream).
Information and expression are the heart of freedom, and of any group's ability to improve its own condition. Take those away, either through traditional authoritarian means, or through more subtle copyright and patent restrictions on the enabling technologies, and you kill it dead.
Let me get this straight. She's unwilling/unable to memorize how to use one key, which is the same key on all Macs, in all applications, at all times? The key which has been used for this purpose since the beginning of Mac history?
Your girlfriend has a serious learning disability.
Bullshit. MS Office uses all kinds of key combinations with mouse clicks, simply because it was written assuming 2 button mice and had to be mapped to a single-button environment.
Blender requires 3 buttons to be happy, and requires contortions for similiar functionality on a one-button system.
Finally, it isn't about ability to memorize. It is about USABILITY and comfort, particularly when doing repetative tasks. KEY+MOUSE requires two hands, slowing down a typist significantly, while RIGHT/MIDDLE CLICK requires only 1 hand, leaving the other where it belongs, ready to type.
Can it be done? Yes. Do those born and bred in a mac environment probably do it? Sure. But is it a good design, when better ones have been shown to exist (3-button mice, or for those in a crippled windows environment, 2-button mice)? Fuck no.
The only learning disability around here is the inability of Apple engineers to learn from and correct their mistakes when it comes to their idiotic mouse design. It wouldn't be so bad, except the damn glidepoints built in to their laptops have only 1 button, forcing people to add a dongle to their portable system. Even Wintel boxes generally have 3-button mice built in by default, despite the fact that most windows users only use 2 buttons. Why? Because the laptop owner might be a CAD user, a Blender user, a Linux user, or someone else who needs that third button, and making them carry around an additional device is a good way to send your customers to the competition that doesn't force them to do so.
Unfortunately, in the mac world, there are no competing laptop manufacturers, so people like myself and my girlfriend are stuck with Apple's terrible design decision, a FLAW they won't even admit, much less ever fix.
Unfortunately, in Europe, the large majority of revenue is generated from small and medium businesses.
That's true in the US as well. Unfortunately, large corporations have political and financial cloute vastly out of proportion with their impact on the economy... because the wealth is concentrated, and can be used in a coordinated lobby/bribery effort that no individual small or medium sized corporation can afford.
The amount of wealth that would be created if the patent system were completely scrapped is mindboggling. The amount of wealth that would be created if the copyright system were reformed, with monopolies eliminated either through manditory licensing, or a redefinition of what copyright does (affords authors/publishers guaranteed income from derivative works, rather than granting a monopoly and by default banning such derivative works) is mindboggling.
But it is unlikely to happen, because those with the patent and copyright portfolios are the very cartels that wield such undo influence on our so-called "leaders," and because everyone not directly informed of the issue fears change as a default stance (a tragic human failing that has always delayed and often scuttled many a necessary reform throughout history)
God will you people PLEASE come up with something more original to pick at Apple with than the One Button Mouse. They obviously weren't THAT wrong about the one button mouse, they still use them. And they like it!
And they still suck!
My girlfriend loves her powerbook 17" and frequently expresses her delight in no longer having to touch Microsoft products (except Microsoft office, which she frequently curses but still maintains a love-hate relationship with).
The one button mouse, or rather glidepoint, drives her nuts. Not the glidepoint itself (she loves that), but the single button that forces her to memorize somekey+mouseclick to do basic things the rest of us do with the right mouse button and, in the case of us Linux/*BSD folks, the middle mouse button.
She could get any USB mouse and connect it to her laptop, but that would mean Yet Another Dongle to carry around, and the risk of carporal tunnel... she finds the glidepoint comfortable to use all day, and reguluar mice/trackballs physically uncomfortable to use.
So yes, it is a FLAW, a big, huge, honking flaw the designers and their apologists steadfastly refuse to admit, probably for reasons of pride and irrational fandom. It is a testament to the quality of the rest of the system (an excellent OS, excellent apps, wonderful hardware design, etc), that people like my girlfreind love their macs DESPITE the rediculous one-button mouse.
Everyone I know who has an Apple (a fair number, most of them because I suggested it as an alternative to Windows) loves it, without exception. And everyone I know who has a mac absolutely hates the one-button mouse, again without exception
The short answer is yes (IANAL but I read groklaw:-))
My understanding, from everything I've read, is that patent holders can sue ANYONE making unauthorized use of their patent, from the manufacturer down to the end user. Mostly they go after manufacturers and resellers (note that some of those who settled with the holder of this particularly noxious patent were Intel RESELLERS, not chip manufacturers).
This is one of the things that makes software patents even worse than most other patents (which are themselve a bad idea... inventors don't need monopolies to exploit their ideas, monopolies are terrible for markets, and monopolies on ideas and invention any progress built upon those ideas or inventions)... software users exist in almost every home, hence, like the new copyright extentions of the late 20th and early 21st century, patent lawsuits can be extended all the way down to a 12-year old using a program on her PC or Mac that violates some speculator's patent on [insert obvious idea here].
Pro-patent lobbiest and apologists will argue that you can always go to court to overturn the patent with prior art if it is truly illegitamate (thereby neatly avoiding the entire point of how terrible patents are for anyone who cares about technological and human progress), and that's true as far as it goes... until you look closer and realize that, on average, it costs $1 million dollars to overturn a single patent, an amount of money few mere mortals have, and most small businesses can ill afford. This cost makes even invalid patents effectively valid, as so few people and companies can afford the expense of correcting the patent offices negligence, and will be forced to pay the shakedown money (or cease using/making the software/device that allegedly infringes, or both) instead.
I think the current IBM grant does not include the Sun license, but it does include MPL-derived licenses that are very similar in their text. IBM would probably not be able to justifiably resist a call to add the CDDL.
Well, I for one hope IBM doesn't add the CDDL until such a time as Sun adds the GPL to their license. Otherwise, IBM would be giving up the clout it might have to counterattack should Sun decide to launch a patent attack against GNU, Linux, or some other free software project that happens to outcompete their offerings.
Sun has already made grumblings supporting SCO's untenable position WRT Linux. Their support of Linux and open source has been spotty at best. Personally, I do not trust Sun as far as I can throw them, and I suspect IBM doesn't either.
We have all probably been trolled. Nevertheless...
here they are... and I should read what?
Obviously you need remedial help in reading comprehension. This supports my hypothesis that religion does in fact have a deliterious effect on people's ability to reason, and hence think, i.e. it makes people stupid, by crippling their ability to use whatever native intelligence they might have been born with.
You (presumably) read the very words you posted, quoting the 9th and 10th amendments to the constition, and failed to comprehend them in a meaningful way, in the context of other discussions refuting your rather pathetic assertion that the constitution does not require freedom of speech, separation of religion, and asserting that if the constitution doesn't spell a given right out explicitly, we by default do not have that right.
You probably won't understand these words, but I would suggest a reading tutor and some basic, remedial reading comprehension courses.
If that were true, it would mean for example that the California stem cell initiative would be practically worthless.
That's incorrect. The reason so few institutions are able to do stem-cell research in the United States, even with private funds, is that they are restricted by federal grants for other, unrelated research.
The California measure is in part to off-set federal funding losses for institutions that would lose federal funding if they choose to advance the science, and in part posturing, as California cannot afford to fund the initiative.
There is at least one group doing stem cell research in California, but they are only able to do so because ALL of their funding is private, in ALL areas. Were they to take on a single federal grant, even for something completely unrelated to stem-cell research, Bush's executive order WOULD take effect and they would either have to suspend their stem-cell research, or lose their other grants.
This applies to universities, corporations, and others, regardless of California's initiative. So yes, in many respects California's initiative is next to useless.
You may not find it plausible for governments to behave in such a boneheaded fashion, but your disbelief doesn't change the facts of the matter in the least.
Since the original comment was censored by right-leaning moderators, here is a recap:
It's technically correct, but also misleading, to say that federal funding of embryonic-stem cell research is all that has been banned. While technically true, the reach of federal funding extends so wide and deep in the research community that the net effect of banning embryonic stem-cell research by any group, organization, or individual is indistinguishable from outlawing it completely to most organizations.
It isn't just federal funding for stem-cell research that has been banned. Federal funding for any research, related or not, bans any embryonic stem-cell research from being conducted, anywhere, by anyone associated with the organization involved. Nearly every research organization in the country receives federal funding in one form or another. If the lab across campus doing physics has a federal grant, you can't do embryonic stem-cell research (except using the existing, contaminated lines).
The effect is the same as outlawing stem-cell research for 99.9% of all research facilities, a fact the fundies and Republican apologists like to play down or dismiss entirely. However, it doesn't make distortions like those in the summary any less obnoxious or inaccurate. There is at least one entirely privately funded research facility in California that is doing embryonic stem-cell research, our superstitious, less-than-intelligent, ever-so-less-than-competent president notwithstanding.
That's not true. Federal funding for harvesting embryonic stem cells was cut off.
That's correct, but also misleading. The executive order banned embryonic stell-cell research by any organization, group, or researcher receiving federal funding.
Not federal funding for stem-cell research. Federal funding for any research, related or not. Nearly every research organization in the country receives federal funding in one form or another. If the lab across campus doing physics has a federal grant, you can't do embryonic stem-cell research (except using the existing, contaminated lines).
The effect is the same as outlawing stem-cell research for 99.9% of all research facilities, a fact the fundies and Republican apologists like to play down or dismiss entirely. However, it doesn't make distortions like those in the summary any less obnoxious or inaccurate. There is at least one entirely privately funded research facility in California that is doing embryonic stem-cell research, our superstitious, less-than-intelligent, ever-so-less-than-competent president notwithstanding.
Or as dumb as expecting a crack-head welfare cheating democrat to know French (or English)?
Many apologies, but if idiotic stereotypes are going to be thrown around, let's get one from the other side.
If you can name one crack-head welfare cheating Democrat in congress, the presidency, or the federal bench, you might have a point.
We do have an ignorant Texan who can barely speak English, who is dense, foolish, and incompetent to the point of insanity, and most certainly can't understand French in the White House at this very moment. That isn't a stereotype, that is a documented, if unfortunate (for America and much of the world), fact of life -- whether like it or not.
Apologies to other Texans, clearly not all Texans are ignorant fucks, but the one in the White House most certainly is, and the earlier comment was clearly aimed at him, and he is spreading the reputation far and wide. Unfortunately that reputation isn't just that Texans are ignorant, it is that Americans are ignorant, hateful, bigoted bullies who don't care about much of anything but themselves. I, as an American who is none of these things, resent the hell out of this, and I resent the hell out of an ignoramous of a president who is clearly responsible for this.
You can debate the extent of our influence, but just assuming that extent is 0% and adopting an "Après moi la déluge" attitude is Just Plain Dumb.
Almost as dumb as expecting an ignorant Texan to understand French, or does the One True Party(tm) require us to call the language "Freedom" these days? I can never keep all of my NewBushSpeek straight.
you mean if you do not want to use your portable devices anymore use OGG.
Nonsense. Buy a sensible portable player and it will support ogg perfectly. My Rio Karma plays oggs beautifully, for fifteen hours at a time. It's great to take up in the airplane for those long cross-country flights.
I love ogg, but it is worthless to 90% of us that use mp3.
Only because you didn't do your research, or made a flawed decision when choosing your portable device. That is hardly the fault of the format... the devices are available and work very well.
I don't work for the movie industry, but I bet it's a pain in the ass to subtitle and/or dub a movie professionally for theatrical release. Over and over again, once for each language.
This is actually insightful (though I disagree) and deserves a response.
The solution is to do what folks buying DVDs overseas with multi-region players do anyway: make an initial release in the movie's native language concurrent everywhere, and rerelease dubbed or subtitled versions later.
Or get out of the way, and let the free market do it for you. Release native language (e.g. English / American version of American movies) in the target markets, and stop worrying about someone who chooses to export the DVDs to where there is a demand. What do you care? The person doing the exporting has to buy the DVD from you anyway, so you make your money regardless.
Of course, the MPAA doesn't get to manipulate and strangle the fragmented market the way the do now. Instead, they have to accept a free market like everyone else. Poor things.
No matter how you look at it, there is absolutely no excuse for the market fragmentation and manipulation the movie industry (and HP) engages in, and frankly we shouldn't stand for it for a second (and we should run any politician that stands for it out of office).
I'll put that quote in the same file I have this quote:
"This economic boom fueled by the technology sector will never end. It's the beginning of a New Economy, and the cycles of bust and boom are forever gone."
I share your skepticism of any such rosy prognosis. It sounds much like the hubris that led people to believe the Titanic was unsinkable.
That having been said, we don't really *know* if the technology sector could have driven a "new economy." The old guard media cartels were successful in passing the DMCA, the SCA (later overturned), and numerous other that have hamstrung the technology sectors in numerous respects. Add to that the Baby Bells successful use of the FCC as their whore to drive out competing broadband services, and you have an economic bubble that was burst from the outside, by old-economy entrenched interests.
I think the bubble would probably have burst eventually anyway (perhaps when energy prices became high enough to make the technology too expensive to use and/or less appealing to purchasers), but the technology bust at the end of the last century was more a result of old-school interests knocking down the new guy (and buying laws, politicians, and judges wholesale to do so) that any inherent weakness in the "new economy" (which was really the old economy, with less restrictions and more freedom to trade and generate wealth).
As ridiculous region coding is for DVDs, there I can see a minimal reason (the publishers not wanting a DVD to make it into a market where the movie hasn't even been in the cinemas yet... But as cinema release dates for the big global productions inch ever closer to each other all over the globe, this reason is going away fast - leaving the only "good" thing of the region codings that they can charge more in Europe.
Region codes are bullshit no matter how you slice it. They make a mockery of free markets and free trade agreements. Essentially, the international corporations have decided they like free trade agreements when it means they can outsource their labor to the cheapest markets without restrictions (and in the case of the Bush administration, with tax incentives to do so), but they will artificially fragment the marketplace in order to prevent their customers from shopping competatively.
Free trade for corporations, restricted trades for mortal humans.
Its unjustifiable, regardless of whether it's DVDs we're talking about, or printer cartidges. The DVD justification has always been weak, and typically break down to:
1) MPAA Whiney voice: "But we don't want people buying movies in one market when they haven't been released in another."
1) Sensible citizen's response: "Touch shit. It's a global marketplace. Release your movies globally, instead of fucking with people in market B by making them wait six months longer than people in market A. This whole "second class" market citizenship is vile anyway."
2) Whiney MPAA voice: "But we don't want arbitrage markets forming, where people buy DVDs in China for $3 and sell them in the US for $10 when we're selling the same DVD for $20."
2A) Reasonable citizen response: "Fuck you. If you can make a profit selling DVDs in China for $3, you can make a profit selling them in the US for $3. Anything more is gouging the customer, and quite frankly, no one with a shred of common sense should have an ounce of sympathy for an industry that bases its entire business model on the practice of gouging various sets of customers. Oh, and if you're going to whine about currency markets and shifting values of the yuan against the dollar, a sensible person has but two things to say. One, the Yuan is locked to the dollar, so the specific argument with regard to China is doubly bullshit, and two, in the more general sense (e.g. the US vs. Europe), currency markets are free marktets, and you can accept their results the same as the rest of us. If that means someone occasionally gets a good deal when they travel overseas, more power to them. Its called a global economy... you've used it as an excuse to outsource our jobs overseas, now get used to us shopping overseas if we like."
HP should be run out of town for this nonsense. The MPAA should be run out of town for this nonsense. But most importantly, the scum-sucking politicians who set up this one-sided regime of free trade for companies, but restricted trade and rights for real, living human beings, should be run out of the country for this nonsense.
All us middle-aged geeks want to be well retired by 2038 so we don't have to deal with the *nix/Linux 32-bit date problem - or at least semi-retired so we can be called back on consultancy basis and hefty fee.
feh...I'm already out of it. I run 64-bit Gentoo GNU/Linux on a dual opteron. Call me when 64-bit dates are due to roll over... I should by ready for my 10^75th rejuvination treatment by then.:-)
Of course, that won't stop me from charging 500 Euros/hour (dollars will no doubt be worthless by then, thanks to the long term effects of our current administration's policies) to those dumb enough to still be running 32-bit in three decades.
I agree with much of your post, but I must take issue with this:
I admire the fact that Bill has been able to become rich and successful. To his credit, he drove his company to take risks and challenge his competitors. If it weren't for the principles of Microsoft fighting for their market share, the industry might look much less inviting than it is today. Competition is a good thing, and Microsoft is nothing if not competative.
Bill didn't become rich and successful. He was born rich, and used mommy's IBM contacts to get his operating system put on IBM PCs. He then ran a monopolistic enterprise, and used illegal tactics (for which he has been convicted, if not punished) to go from being a millionaire by inheritence to a billionaire through monopolistic thuggary. In the process he foisted shoddy products on a captive public, held the technology back at least 15 years, and did irreperable harm to the industry (and countless thousands of lives, many of whome were far more innovative and creative thah he or his minions).
He continues to behave in the same manner, and it isn't helpful to the industry or the marketplace. The only people he is making the industry more inviting are holders of MSFT stock, and even that is arguable (the stock isn't going anywhere, and hasn't for a couple of years).
In a world where you can be put into jail for pointing out the emperor is naked, its best to keep quiet. Companies and people don't want to hear about it. Take a hint.
And don't laugh at the naked pricks when they get their just desserts.
You'll be branded a terrorist, halled off to gitmo (or worse) and cornholed by our men in green (or worse, perhaps by other men in dark suits).
We have managed to do something our enemies never could: set up architectures of control designed specifically to keep our society from correcting its errors and improving itself.
No society that does this to itself survives even in the short term. Ours will be no exception, and I for one don't feel a great deal of lament for it anymore.
If we're going to play that fast and loose with logic, it's easy. Atheistic communism, by a long shot.
Sorry, no.
"Athiestic Communism's" dead, while quite numerous, pales in comparison to those killed by Christianity throughout its history, including the Nazi's, a Catholic holocaust against the Jews, Roma, Gays, and others, which by the way was almost universally endorsed by the protestant clergy of the day as well. In addition we have the 20,000,000 dead in Russia, and millions of others elsewhere.
The christians scream bloody murder and try to disavow the Nazi's as athiests having nothing to do with Christianity, usually by leveraging Hitler's cynical power ploys as evidence he wasn't a "real Christian" despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary (the same may very well happen to Bush after his polices run their course... all those fundamentalists lauding him today will tell everyone he wasn't a "real Christian" tommorow), and thereby missing the point that, whether or not he was truly devout or merely opportunistic, he was endorsed by virtually all of the clergy of his day, including the Catholic church and protestant leaders of central Europe.
Then of course we have over a millenium of bloody history before that, which, while populations year-to-year may have been a fraction of what they are today, total over the course of time to far more dead than those killed by communists. Even Islam, which today is in the grips of its own version of fascism and is arguably the most toxic religion of the moment, pales in comparison to the numbers killed by the Christians in the name of their religion over the last two thousand years.
I mean, if a band wants to make a song that "the man" doesn't want you to hear, they'll have a hard time getting it published by a big record label or played on the radio stations that are all owned by ClearChannel. So, maybe they'll release it for free over the Internet. Not that they will be, if the government ever were successful at eliminating all copyright infringement, it's only the non-corporate-sanctioned independent voices that people will be able to find on filesharing programs.
The efforts are aimed primarilly at banning the technologies. Congress, the president, and the media cartels are trying to ban P2P technology, not just go after those who violate copyrights. Lose the technology, and you lose the conduit by which indie bands and indie filmmakers can disseminate their wares and reach a marketplace without going through the cartels.
We've seen comments like that in other threads, decrying Freenet as "encouraging" despicable things like child pornography because it tries to insure privacy and anonymouty on the Internet, the kind of privacy and anonymouty we took for granted just a couple of decades ago... and now take for granted that only "bad" people want (or need). The implication is that anyone using a technology like Freenet must be bad... which is a tiny step from asserting that Freenet (and similar technologies) should be banned. Indeed, as I mentioned above, there are powerful forces asserting that very thing right now... and some courts who are agreeing.
In the next decade or two we are about to get some very ugly lessons in why GOOD people need anonymouty and privacy... at which point those very nay-sayers will chime in with "hind-sight is 20/20"... never once admitting they were wrong and those they shouted down were right.
So no, I don't think legislation like the Sony Bono act and the DMCA are doing a thing to erode corporate control over the media. The Internet has been doing that, and Sony Bono, the DMCA, and other more toxic legislation now pending are designed to slow and ultimately thwart that, and to return control to those very same cartels by means of a huge, legal club with which to financially whack any who threaten their cartel. Remember, the DMCA lets you silence a websight by mere accusation... no actual copyright infringement need have occurred, indeed, no evidence of infringement need even exist, for a publisher (website) to be shutdown (censored).
That is hardly empowering the little guy, or eroding control of content by the big guy. Quite the opposite.
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In my home country all my discount cards are anonymous. I just refuse to give my personal data. Works all the time.
Pay cash (and don't buy licquor, beer or wine, lest you be required to show ID to prove your age) and you'll be alright.
Pay by check or creditcard, and they'll have cross-referenced you to your discount card perminently. Buy alcohol or cigarettes and get carded, and they may (or may not) cross-reference your identity to your discount card.
I guess I have more faith in the system.
I don't.
Here in Illinois, 50% of those on death row were proven by genetic analysis to be innocent of the crimes of which they had been convicted.
50%.
One in two people sentenced to death had been wrongly convicted, and were only exonerated pre-mortem because they happen to have enough appeals in place to postpone their executions until a technology came along able to prove they weren't the culprits. These people were in some cases convicted on evidence a hell of a lot more flimsy than a Safeway Club Card purchasing record, and they were sentenced to die.
The numbers were so horrific that our Governor at the time, a Republican who until then had supported the death penalty, placed a moratorium on all further executions in the state, and rightly so.
Of course, this "new" technology, like any other, is falable, and in a case like this one (where everything's gone up in smoke, and where the accused lived there anyway) entirely inapplicable, so lest someone think "but now we have this new panacea, so it won't happen anymore" I can only say, don't kid yourself.
Justice in America is appallingly hap-hazard. Police are lazy. They latch onto a theory they like and make the facts fit their expectations. The lose, damage, and misinterpret evidence all the time. District Attorney's persue careers based on rates of conviction, and often have little concern for the actual guilt or innocence of those they are convicting (there have been a couple in recent memory here in Chicago who have been proven to knowingly convict innocent people, in at least one case because he was more interested in putting the scapegoat behind bars and looking good to an angry public than in serving justice).
Having served on a couple of juries, I can say from my own experience that juries are faced with severely filtered and diluted information, outright misinformation, and a great deal of emotional manipulation from both sides. Their odds of getting something right don't seem to be much higher than what we would get if we simply flipped a coin to determine guilt or innocence.
I understand people who break and run when accused of a crime they didn't commit. The prisons are full of people wrongly convicted, and the streets with people who got away scot-free (and of course the opposite is also true, the prisons are also full of guilty people correctly convicted, and the streets with people justly acquited). It is an utter crapshoot as to whether or not you are correctly found guilty or notguilty, or incorrectly found notguilty or guilty, and this guy got incredibly lucky.
It even talks about leaving the UN. I don't see how it could offend anyone so much. Maybe next time the author will be more politcally correct in his examples.
... not because of its contents (although one could make a strong argument for that: elevating the right's propensity for living in denial of Bush's machinations WRT Iraq to political correctness is far more sinister than elevating anti-sexism and anti-racism to the same level, though IMHO both are unhelpful), but because of its ever widening scope, touching every aspect of life, and every aspect of politics from micro-managed day-to-day minutia of Bush's latest behavior to general issues of philosophy and lifestyle, in ways the left thankfully never dreamed.
... like landing in Guantanamo ... oops, I mean the Gulag.
I hope not. The world is ill with political correctness. We need to be able to talk about issues, in any manner we like, without fear of reprisal.
The new CorrectThink/PoliticalCorrectness coming from the right is even more frightening than that which came from the left
People on both the right and the left should be very politically incorrect, and if a few partisans on either side get offended, so much the better. We need straight, frank dialogue, and an ability to express opinion without fear of political, professional, and financial reprisal. That is, after all, what the founding father's meant by "freedom of speech," not the corporate muzzling we have today.
I can hear the right whining now: "We have freedom of speech, but freedom of speech has consiquences" (paraphrasing Baby Bush).
By that definition, Communist Russia had freedom of speech. You could say anything you like, but freedom of speech had consiquences
Really, the only expression that should be forbidden is one written in FORTRAN. *ducks!*
Yeah, I noticed that too. He seems to be arguing that removing his hand from the keyboard to click on the mouse makes him a faster typist. Patently absurd.
You are either being deliberately obtuse, or your IQ has fallen into single digits.
Activities which require one hand on the mouse are faster and simpler to do than activities which require you to use one hand on the mouse and another on the keyboard, pecking out keys that don't generally fall into one's typing pattern. Now granted, one can adjust one's typing pattern to the new requirement (and stop pecking), but even so the point remains: an action that requires two hands is inherently more complex than an action that requires one. That is the difference between sensible mice used by every other system on the planet, and the abortion that is the Apple one-button mouse.
I'm glad to see Linux adoption by other countries' governments -- yes, even their militaries -- but the title to this story is just ridiculous. The idea that FOSS can "bridge" the staggering gulf between rich and poor in India just beggars belief. Let's not fool ourselves by pretending that Linux means anything to the citizens of India beyond the elite.
... certainly in the context of mass media involving any copying and/or distribution of artistic works.
... even more occasionally a government will nationalize an invention and throw open the doors of innovation to all (the best example is the US Government's seizure of the Wright Brother's aeroplane patent during World War II to stimulate innovation and advancement, in a very successful effort to catch up with the Europeans in aviation).
... or are you saying solutions which take time and don't come to fruition in a short time are by definition "rediculous."
Clearly you do not understand Architectures of Control and how they affect not only our daily lives, but the daily lives of everyone on the planet.
Copyright is an architecture of control, empowering publishers at the expense of writers (despite what the wording of the constitution implies) and readers, musicians and listeners, etc. It allows a cartel, and in some places government, to keep a very tight reign on most aspects of culture
Patents are an architecture of control, allowing cartels to own a stranglehold on most proven and emergent technologies. Occasionally the odd invention will slip through and change the world
There are others architectures of control, but these two limit knowledge and expression, the two most important things to the self-empowerment of any group of people, be they peasants in the rice paddies of backwoods Asia or tech-savvy cyberpunks in downtown New York.
Stallman's GPL is the first, and by far the most successful, hack on the architecture of control known as Copyright, reversing its role from one of restrictive encumberance to one of empowerment, and as such has been wildly successful beyond anyone's expectations.
That a workable system (GNU/Linux) exists that can empower the engineers and technicians of an entire country, indeed all of the developing world, cannot be overstated. This is the first step toward building modern economies, using modern technologies, that don't ship currency wholesale out of the developing economy and into the pockets of Microsoft.
This is huge, and the ripple effects will most certainly help improve the lives of even the most destitute peasants, if for no other reason than more money in the local economy means a bigger local economy, which in turn means more wealth and capital flowing, i.e. more opportunity and a decrase in poverty.
Maybe in a few decades...
So, in other words Linux can help bridge the staggering gulf between rich and poor. You contradict your very own comment
Hint: none of these problems will be solved in a day, or even a year. But free software (and the paradigms of a public commons in technology and, perhaps, other fundamental infrastructures of society it fosters) is already having a positive impact, and the trends will only accelerate.
Unless, of course, US style software patents become the world norm. Then the Architectures of Control will close the gap Stallman's GPL and other, similiar licenses have opened, and free software will become a memory (and social justice, an impossible dream).
Information and expression are the heart of freedom, and of any group's ability to improve its own condition. Take those away, either through traditional authoritarian means, or through more subtle copyright and patent restrictions on the enabling technologies, and you kill it dead.
Let me get this straight. She's unwilling/unable to memorize how to use one key, which is the same key on all Macs, in all applications, at all times? The key which has been used for this purpose since the beginning of Mac history?
Your girlfriend has a serious learning disability.
Bullshit. MS Office uses all kinds of key combinations with mouse clicks, simply because it was written assuming 2 button mice and had to be mapped to a single-button environment.
Blender requires 3 buttons to be happy, and requires contortions for similiar functionality on a one-button system.
Finally, it isn't about ability to memorize. It is about USABILITY and comfort, particularly when doing repetative tasks. KEY+MOUSE requires two hands, slowing down a typist significantly, while RIGHT/MIDDLE CLICK requires only 1 hand, leaving the other where it belongs, ready to type.
Can it be done? Yes. Do those born and bred in a mac environment probably do it? Sure. But is it a good design, when better ones have been shown to exist (3-button mice, or for those in a crippled windows environment, 2-button mice)? Fuck no.
The only learning disability around here is the inability of Apple engineers to learn from and correct their mistakes when it comes to their idiotic mouse design. It wouldn't be so bad, except the damn glidepoints built in to their laptops have only 1 button, forcing people to add a dongle to their portable system. Even Wintel boxes generally have 3-button mice built in by default, despite the fact that most windows users only use 2 buttons. Why? Because the laptop owner might be a CAD user, a Blender user, a Linux user, or someone else who needs that third button, and making them carry around an additional device is a good way to send your customers to the competition that doesn't force them to do so.
Unfortunately, in the mac world, there are no competing laptop manufacturers, so people like myself and my girlfriend are stuck with Apple's terrible design decision, a FLAW they won't even admit, much less ever fix.
Unfortunately, in Europe, the large majority of revenue is generated from small and medium businesses.
... because the wealth is concentrated, and can be used in a coordinated lobby/bribery effort that no individual small or medium sized corporation can afford.
That's true in the US as well. Unfortunately, large corporations have political and financial cloute vastly out of proportion with their impact on the economy
The amount of wealth that would be created if the patent system were completely scrapped is mindboggling. The amount of wealth that would be created if the copyright system were reformed, with monopolies eliminated either through manditory licensing, or a redefinition of what copyright does (affords authors/publishers guaranteed income from derivative works, rather than granting a monopoly and by default banning such derivative works) is mindboggling.
But it is unlikely to happen, because those with the patent and copyright portfolios are the very cartels that wield such undo influence on our so-called "leaders," and because everyone not directly informed of the issue fears change as a default stance (a tragic human failing that has always delayed and often scuttled many a necessary reform throughout history)
God will you people PLEASE come up with something more original to pick at Apple with than the One Button Mouse. They obviously weren't THAT wrong about the one button mouse, they still use them. And they like it!
... she finds the glidepoint comfortable to use all day, and reguluar mice/trackballs physically uncomfortable to use.
And they still suck!
My girlfriend loves her powerbook 17" and frequently expresses her delight in no longer having to touch Microsoft products (except Microsoft office, which she frequently curses but still maintains a love-hate relationship with).
The one button mouse, or rather glidepoint, drives her nuts. Not the glidepoint itself (she loves that), but the single button that forces her to memorize somekey+mouseclick to do basic things the rest of us do with the right mouse button and, in the case of us Linux/*BSD folks, the middle mouse button.
She could get any USB mouse and connect it to her laptop, but that would mean Yet Another Dongle to carry around, and the risk of carporal tunnel
So yes, it is a FLAW, a big, huge, honking flaw the designers and their apologists steadfastly refuse to admit, probably for reasons of pride and irrational fandom. It is a testament to the quality of the rest of the system (an excellent OS, excellent apps, wonderful hardware design, etc), that people like my girlfreind love their macs DESPITE the rediculous one-button mouse.
Everyone I know who has an Apple (a fair number, most of them because I suggested it as an alternative to Windows) loves it, without exception. And everyone I know who has a mac absolutely hates the one-button mouse, again without exception
The short answer is yes (IANAL but I read groklaw :-))
... inventors don't need monopolies to exploit their ideas, monopolies are terrible for markets, and monopolies on ideas and invention any progress built upon those ideas or inventions) ... software users exist in almost every home, hence, like the new copyright extentions of the late 20th and early 21st century, patent lawsuits can be extended all the way down to a 12-year old using a program on her PC or Mac that violates some speculator's patent on [insert obvious idea here].
... until you look closer and realize that, on average, it costs $1 million dollars to overturn a single patent, an amount of money few mere mortals have, and most small businesses can ill afford. This cost makes even invalid patents effectively valid, as so few people and companies can afford the expense of correcting the patent offices negligence, and will be forced to pay the shakedown money (or cease using/making the software/device that allegedly infringes, or both) instead.
My understanding, from everything I've read, is that patent holders can sue ANYONE making unauthorized use of their patent, from the manufacturer down to the end user. Mostly they go after manufacturers and resellers (note that some of those who settled with the holder of this particularly noxious patent were Intel RESELLERS, not chip manufacturers).
This is one of the things that makes software patents even worse than most other patents (which are themselve a bad idea
Pro-patent lobbiest and apologists will argue that you can always go to court to overturn the patent with prior art if it is truly illegitamate (thereby neatly avoiding the entire point of how terrible patents are for anyone who cares about technological and human progress), and that's true as far as it goes
I think the current IBM grant does not include the Sun license, but it does include MPL-derived licenses that are very similar in their text. IBM would probably not be able to justifiably resist a call to add the CDDL.
Well, I for one hope IBM doesn't add the CDDL until such a time as Sun adds the GPL to their license. Otherwise, IBM would be giving up the clout it might have to counterattack should Sun decide to launch a patent attack against GNU, Linux, or some other free software project that happens to outcompete their offerings.
Sun has already made grumblings supporting SCO's untenable position WRT Linux. Their support of Linux and open source has been spotty at best. Personally, I do not trust Sun as far as I can throw them, and I suspect IBM doesn't either.
We have all probably been trolled. Nevertheless...
... and I should read what?
here they are
Obviously you need remedial help in reading comprehension. This supports my hypothesis that religion does in fact have a deliterious effect on people's ability to reason, and hence think, i.e. it makes people stupid, by crippling their ability to use whatever native intelligence they might have been born with.
You (presumably) read the very words you posted, quoting the 9th and 10th amendments to the constition, and failed to comprehend them in a meaningful way, in the context of other discussions refuting your rather pathetic assertion that the constitution does not require freedom of speech, separation of religion, and asserting that if the constitution doesn't spell a given right out explicitly, we by default do not have that right.
You probably won't understand these words, but I would suggest a reading tutor and some basic, remedial reading comprehension courses.
If that were true, it would mean for example that the California stem cell initiative would be practically worthless.
That's incorrect. The reason so few institutions are able to do stem-cell research in the United States, even with private funds, is that they are restricted by federal grants for other, unrelated research.
The California measure is in part to off-set federal funding losses for institutions that would lose federal funding if they choose to advance the science, and in part posturing, as California cannot afford to fund the initiative.
There is at least one group doing stem cell research in California, but they are only able to do so because ALL of their funding is private, in ALL areas. Were they to take on a single federal grant, even for something completely unrelated to stem-cell research, Bush's executive order WOULD take effect and they would either have to suspend their stem-cell research, or lose their other grants.
This applies to universities, corporations, and others, regardless of California's initiative. So yes, in many respects California's initiative is next to useless.
You may not find it plausible for governments to behave in such a boneheaded fashion, but your disbelief doesn't change the facts of the matter in the least.
Since the original comment was censored by right-leaning moderators, here is a recap:
It's technically correct, but also misleading, to say that federal funding of embryonic-stem cell research is all that has been banned. While technically true, the reach of federal funding extends so wide and deep in the research community that the net effect of banning embryonic stem-cell research by any group, organization, or individual is indistinguishable from outlawing it completely to most organizations.
It isn't just federal funding for stem-cell research that has been banned. Federal funding for any research, related or not, bans any embryonic stem-cell research from being conducted, anywhere, by anyone associated with the organization involved. Nearly every research organization in the country receives federal funding in one form or another. If the lab across campus doing physics has a federal grant, you can't do embryonic stem-cell research (except using the existing, contaminated lines).
The effect is the same as outlawing stem-cell research for 99.9% of all research facilities, a fact the fundies and Republican apologists like to play down or dismiss entirely. However, it doesn't make distortions like those in the summary any less obnoxious or inaccurate. There is at least one entirely privately funded research facility in California that is doing embryonic stem-cell research, our superstitious, less-than-intelligent, ever-so-less-than-competent president notwithstanding.
That's not true. Federal funding for harvesting embryonic stem cells was cut off.
That's correct, but also misleading. The executive order banned embryonic stell-cell research by any organization, group, or researcher receiving federal funding.
Not federal funding for stem-cell research. Federal funding for any research, related or not. Nearly every research organization in the country receives federal funding in one form or another. If the lab across campus doing physics has a federal grant, you can't do embryonic stem-cell research (except using the existing, contaminated lines).
The effect is the same as outlawing stem-cell research for 99.9% of all research facilities, a fact the fundies and Republican apologists like to play down or dismiss entirely. However, it doesn't make distortions like those in the summary any less obnoxious or inaccurate. There is at least one entirely privately funded research facility in California that is doing embryonic stem-cell research, our superstitious, less-than-intelligent, ever-so-less-than-competent president notwithstanding.
Or as dumb as expecting a crack-head welfare cheating democrat to know French (or English)?
Many apologies, but if idiotic stereotypes are going to be thrown around, let's get one from the other side.
If you can name one crack-head welfare cheating Democrat in congress, the presidency, or the federal bench, you might have a point.
We do have an ignorant Texan who can barely speak English, who is dense, foolish, and incompetent to the point of insanity, and most certainly can't understand French in the White House at this very moment. That isn't a stereotype, that is a documented, if unfortunate (for America and much of the world), fact of life -- whether like it or not.
Apologies to other Texans, clearly not all Texans are ignorant fucks, but the one in the White House most certainly is, and the earlier comment was clearly aimed at him, and he is spreading the reputation far and wide. Unfortunately that reputation isn't just that Texans are ignorant, it is that Americans are ignorant, hateful, bigoted bullies who don't care about much of anything but themselves. I, as an American who is none of these things, resent the hell out of this, and I resent the hell out of an ignoramous of a president who is clearly responsible for this.
You can debate the extent of our influence, but just assuming that extent is 0% and adopting an "Après moi la déluge" attitude is Just Plain Dumb.
Almost as dumb as expecting an ignorant Texan to understand French, or does the One True Party(tm) require us to call the language "Freedom" these days? I can never keep all of my NewBushSpeek straight.
you mean if you do not want to use your portable devices anymore use OGG.
... the devices are available and work very well.
Nonsense. Buy a sensible portable player and it will support ogg perfectly. My Rio Karma plays oggs beautifully, for fifteen hours at a time. It's great to take up in the airplane for those long cross-country flights.
I love ogg, but it is worthless to 90% of us that use mp3.
Only because you didn't do your research, or made a flawed decision when choosing your portable device. That is hardly the fault of the format
The imperfection is yours.
I don't work for the movie industry, but I bet it's a pain in the ass to subtitle and/or dub a movie professionally for theatrical release. Over and over again, once for each language.
This is actually insightful (though I disagree) and deserves a response.
The solution is to do what folks buying DVDs overseas with multi-region players do anyway: make an initial release in the movie's native language concurrent everywhere, and rerelease dubbed or subtitled versions later.
Or get out of the way, and let the free market do it for you. Release native language (e.g. English / American version of American movies) in the target markets, and stop worrying about someone who chooses to export the DVDs to where there is a demand. What do you care? The person doing the exporting has to buy the DVD from you anyway, so you make your money regardless.
Of course, the MPAA doesn't get to manipulate and strangle the fragmented market the way the do now. Instead, they have to accept a free market like everyone else. Poor things.
No matter how you look at it, there is absolutely no excuse for the market fragmentation and manipulation the movie industry (and HP) engages in, and frankly we shouldn't stand for it for a second (and we should run any politician that stands for it out of office).
I'll put that quote in the same file I have this quote:
"This economic boom fueled by the technology sector will never end. It's the beginning of a New Economy, and the cycles of bust and boom are forever gone."
I share your skepticism of any such rosy prognosis. It sounds much like the hubris that led people to believe the Titanic was unsinkable.
That having been said, we don't really *know* if the technology sector could have driven a "new economy." The old guard media cartels were successful in passing the DMCA, the SCA (later overturned), and numerous other that have hamstrung the technology sectors in numerous respects. Add to that the Baby Bells successful use of the FCC as their whore to drive out competing broadband services, and you have an economic bubble that was burst from the outside, by old-economy entrenched interests.
I think the bubble would probably have burst eventually anyway (perhaps when energy prices became high enough to make the technology too expensive to use and/or less appealing to purchasers), but the technology bust at the end of the last century was more a result of old-school interests knocking down the new guy (and buying laws, politicians, and judges wholesale to do so) that any inherent weakness in the "new economy" (which was really the old economy, with less restrictions and more freedom to trade and generate wealth).
As ridiculous region coding is for DVDs, there I can see a minimal reason (the publishers not wanting a DVD to make it into a market where the movie hasn't even been in the cinemas yet... But as cinema release dates for the big global productions inch ever closer to each other all over the globe, this reason is going away fast - leaving the only "good" thing of the region codings that they can charge more in Europe.
... you've used it as an excuse to outsource our jobs overseas, now get used to us shopping overseas if we like."
Region codes are bullshit no matter how you slice it. They make a mockery of free markets and free trade agreements. Essentially, the international corporations have decided they like free trade agreements when it means they can outsource their labor to the cheapest markets without restrictions (and in the case of the Bush administration, with tax incentives to do so), but they will artificially fragment the marketplace in order to prevent their customers from shopping competatively.
Free trade for corporations, restricted trades for mortal humans.
Its unjustifiable, regardless of whether it's DVDs we're talking about, or printer cartidges. The DVD justification has always been weak, and typically break down to:
1) MPAA Whiney voice: "But we don't want people buying movies in one market when they haven't been released in another."
1) Sensible citizen's response: "Touch shit. It's a global marketplace. Release your movies globally, instead of fucking with people in market B by making them wait six months longer than people in market A. This whole "second class" market citizenship is vile anyway."
2) Whiney MPAA voice: "But we don't want arbitrage markets forming, where people buy DVDs in China for $3 and sell them in the US for $10 when we're selling the same DVD for $20."
2A) Reasonable citizen response: "Fuck you. If you can make a profit selling DVDs in China for $3, you can make a profit selling them in the US for $3. Anything more is gouging the customer, and quite frankly, no one with a shred of common sense should have an ounce of sympathy for an industry that bases its entire business model on the practice of gouging various sets of customers. Oh, and if you're going to whine about currency markets and shifting values of the yuan against the dollar, a sensible person has but two things to say. One, the Yuan is locked to the dollar, so the specific argument with regard to China is doubly bullshit, and two, in the more general sense (e.g. the US vs. Europe), currency markets are free marktets, and you can accept their results the same as the rest of us. If that means someone occasionally gets a good deal when they travel overseas, more power to them. Its called a global economy
HP should be run out of town for this nonsense. The MPAA should be run out of town for this nonsense. But most importantly, the scum-sucking politicians who set up this one-sided regime of free trade for companies, but restricted trade and rights for real, living human beings, should be run out of the country for this nonsense.
Not that I'm holding my breath, mind you.
All us middle-aged geeks want to be well retired by 2038 so we don't have to deal with the *nix/Linux 32-bit date problem - or at least semi-retired so we can be called back on consultancy basis and hefty fee.
... I should by ready for my 10^75th rejuvination treatment by then. :-)
feh...I'm already out of it. I run 64-bit Gentoo GNU/Linux on a dual opteron. Call me when 64-bit dates are due to roll over
Of course, that won't stop me from charging 500 Euros/hour (dollars will no doubt be worthless by then, thanks to the long term effects of our current administration's policies) to those dumb enough to still be running 32-bit in three decades.
I agree with much of your post, but I must take issue with this:
I admire the fact that Bill has been able to become rich and successful. To his credit, he drove his company to take risks and challenge his competitors. If it weren't for the principles of Microsoft fighting for their market share, the industry might look much less inviting than it is today. Competition is a good thing, and Microsoft is nothing if not competative.
Bill didn't become rich and successful. He was born rich, and used mommy's IBM contacts to get his operating system put on IBM PCs. He then ran a monopolistic enterprise, and used illegal tactics (for which he has been convicted, if not punished) to go from being a millionaire by inheritence to a billionaire through monopolistic thuggary. In the process he foisted shoddy products on a captive public, held the technology back at least 15 years, and did irreperable harm to the industry (and countless thousands of lives, many of whome were far more innovative and creative thah he or his minions).
He continues to behave in the same manner, and it isn't helpful to the industry or the marketplace. The only people he is making the industry more inviting are holders of MSFT stock, and even that is arguable (the stock isn't going anywhere, and hasn't for a couple of years).
Not much to admire there, on any level.
In a world where you can be put into jail for pointing out the emperor is naked, its best to keep quiet. Companies and people don't want to hear about it. Take a hint.
And don't laugh at the naked pricks when they get their just desserts.
You'll be branded a terrorist, halled off to gitmo (or worse) and cornholed by our men in green (or worse, perhaps by other men in dark suits).
We have managed to do something our enemies never could: set up architectures of control designed specifically to keep our society from correcting its errors and improving itself.
No society that does this to itself survives even in the short term. Ours will be no exception, and I for one don't feel a great deal of lament for it anymore.
If we're going to play that fast and loose with logic, it's easy. Atheistic communism, by a long shot.
... all those fundamentalists lauding him today will tell everyone he wasn't a "real Christian" tommorow), and thereby missing the point that, whether or not he was truly devout or merely opportunistic, he was endorsed by virtually all of the clergy of his day, including the Catholic church and protestant leaders of central Europe.
Sorry, no.
"Athiestic Communism's" dead, while quite numerous, pales in comparison to those killed by Christianity throughout its history, including the Nazi's, a Catholic holocaust against the Jews, Roma, Gays, and others, which by the way was almost universally endorsed by the protestant clergy of the day as well. In addition we have the 20,000,000 dead in Russia, and millions of others elsewhere.
The christians scream bloody murder and try to disavow the Nazi's as athiests having nothing to do with Christianity, usually by leveraging Hitler's cynical power ploys as evidence he wasn't a "real Christian" despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary (the same may very well happen to Bush after his polices run their course
Then of course we have over a millenium of bloody history before that, which, while populations year-to-year may have been a fraction of what they are today, total over the course of time to far more dead than those killed by communists. Even Islam, which today is in the grips of its own version of fascism and is arguably the most toxic religion of the moment, pales in comparison to the numbers killed by the Christians in the name of their religion over the last two thousand years.
I mean, if a band wants to make a song that "the man" doesn't want you to hear, they'll have a hard time getting it published by a big record label or played on the radio stations that are all owned by ClearChannel. So, maybe they'll release it for free over the Internet. Not that they will be, if the government ever were successful at eliminating all copyright infringement, it's only the non-corporate-sanctioned independent voices that people will be able to find on filesharing programs.
... and now take for granted that only "bad" people want (or need). The implication is that anyone using a technology like Freenet must be bad ... which is a tiny step from asserting that Freenet (and similar technologies) should be banned. Indeed, as I mentioned above, there are powerful forces asserting that very thing right now ... and some courts who are agreeing.
... at which point those very nay-sayers will chime in with "hind-sight is 20/20" ... never once admitting they were wrong and those they shouted down were right.
... no actual copyright infringement need have occurred, indeed, no evidence of infringement need even exist, for a publisher (website) to be shutdown (censored).
The efforts are aimed primarilly at banning the technologies. Congress, the president, and the media cartels are trying to ban P2P technology, not just go after those who violate copyrights. Lose the technology, and you lose the conduit by which indie bands and indie filmmakers can disseminate their wares and reach a marketplace without going through the cartels.
We've seen comments like that in other threads, decrying Freenet as "encouraging" despicable things like child pornography because it tries to insure privacy and anonymouty on the Internet, the kind of privacy and anonymouty we took for granted just a couple of decades ago
In the next decade or two we are about to get some very ugly lessons in why GOOD people need anonymouty and privacy
So no, I don't think legislation like the Sony Bono act and the DMCA are doing a thing to erode corporate control over the media. The Internet has been doing that, and Sony Bono, the DMCA, and other more toxic legislation now pending are designed to slow and ultimately thwart that, and to return control to those very same cartels by means of a huge, legal club with which to financially whack any who threaten their cartel. Remember, the DMCA lets you silence a websight by mere accusation
That is hardly empowering the little guy, or eroding control of content by the big guy. Quite the opposite.