If you argue that Libraries should allow pr0n access because of free speech, shouldn't they also provide pr0n videos and magazines because of free speech ?
NO. There is a HUGE difference between "providing" and "not forbidding".
It's the difference between "requiring all DVD's to be unencrypted and lacking region codes" and "not throwing people in jail for bypassing these restrictions in a reasonable and fair manner".
From the advogato articles quote on what constitutes a so-called "IPR impairing license": [...]or (c) be redistributable at no charge.
Apparently, merely "not charging money for redistribution" counts as "IPR Impairing" according to the whacked-out crack-smokers at MS's legal department...
Now, should the SSSCA pass (CPFDFJKFJSKD or whatever)[...]
You mean the Corporate-Bought Disney-Trashes-the-Public Act?:-)
That would be both scary AND irritating - "Free" Use (both "Gratis" and "Libre") was the whole POINT of the Ogg file format and Vorbis sound codec. This bill would make this goal ILLEGAL. (shudder)....
Re:Have artists ever been compensated for their mu
on
Web Radio and the RIAA
·
· Score: 2
The money went to artists? I thought it went to lobbying efforts.
Maybe they consider the lobbyists to be the TRUE "artists". After all, they must be doing some pretty creative work on the legislators to get some of the crap introduced and passed that they have...
About Konqueror's javascript support being vastly updated. The only site left that I have javascript problems with is atomfilm's screwy setup (the "watch film" links on the pages are some funky javascript routines that don't seem to work...the stderr text mentions an attempt at"'VBGetWindowsMediaVersion'"...)
I'm using CVS from yesterday. The only problems I'm running into now are some oddities in kate (the text editor) and the fact that there's STILL not a version of the GPL Quanta that will start up for me so far...everything else is beautiful.
[...]points out California revoked Hop-On's corporate status[...]
Holy........Are they saying the "corporate death penalty" (revocation of corporate charter) was actually USED by the Government against a fellow corporation?????
I'll agree with this - when one WILLINGLY invites a business to communicate with them by email, there's not problem. I'm still allowing (of all people) X-10 to email me (once each day, talk about overkill), since I ordered the $6.00 special introductory "FireCracker interface kit" years ago when they were mentioned on slashdot. I'm waiting for them to have another really good deal on something besides their little spy cameras (a bargain on their two-way computer interface and some indoor motion sensors at a ridiculously low price would be nice. More toys for me.)...
What's really funny to me is that I just yesterday(!) got around to finally hooking up the "FireCracker" kit. I can at least say that it works, and was well worth the $6.00 I paid for it...
To get back to the original topic, though, I think the original poster MEANT that there were no legitimate "unsolicited" email marketing programs (in an age when nearly everyone gets ONLY unsolicited advertisements, it's easy to forget that there are a few rare, legitimate solicited ones out there as well)...
I hope not. It just occurs to me that this might be a "derivative work" according to the MPAA...
I think most of us rational people realize that "alternate soundtracks" are perfectly harmless if not actually helpful to the bottom line of companies whose DVDs are getting alternate tracks made for them, but I think most of us recognize just how rational the MPAA is...
If they do attack this, at least the the "squashing of free speech" aspect of their current campaigns will be more blatant (if such a thing is possible), and if they DON'T, then we'll have another legitimate reason for 'fair-use' space-shifted copies of DVD movies (to make SVCD's with the alternate soundtracks for personal use on our standalone players, of course.)
It used to be that the "focus" on a webpage was always(?) on the links on the page in KDE3. So, in other words, as I'm typing here in the textarea to fill in this web form, the "focus" is here (and if I hit ENTER, it should do whatever "Enter" means where it is focussed, i.e. it should put a newline in the textarea). Previously, once I hit "enter" in the textarea, the FOCUS was still on the first link in the page, even though it's the textarea that the focus SHOULD have been on, since I'm typing in it. Upon hitting enter, it would go to the first link in the page, rather than adding a line to the text...
(I don't know how coherent that explanation was, but hopefully it helps. The short version is that you couldn't hit "enter" anywhere in a webpage without having it act as though you just clicked on the currently-focussed link on the page...)
how exactly is the ban on soft money (which I thought this bill was about?) unconstitutional?
Look at it this way - in order to have even a remote chance of getting voted into office, you must have enough "fame" for the voter to know you exist and what you stand for. That's the purpose of the various marketing and advertising stunts that we call a "political campaign". This, of course, costs money.
This "reform" basically limits how much money a single "entity" can give a candidate or party. That
means that with the passage of this bill, only people who are ALREADY "famous" (i.e. incumbents and favorites of the media corporations) have enough exposure to raise enough money for a "visible" campaign - they're the only ones who can make up in volume (number of contributors) what is lost in "total donation per capita".
A real "outsider", who isn't already well-entrenched in the existing power structure could previously have hoped for the slim, but conceivable, chance that a few wealthy donors might be willing to contribute enough for him or her to be heard and possibly elected (where they might, possibly, do something about the problems that have spread over the current system like mildew). NOW...they're screwed. They aren't already famous enough to get millions of people to give them the smaller donations they require, and are now ALSO forbidden to make up the difference with larger donors.
In summary, this "reform" serves far more to protect the incumbent politicians, parties, and 'old-boys network' from competition than to prevent actual abuses. (As far as I know, although Disney can't write a big, fat check to Hollings after this bill, they CAN, if they want, have their news anchors on ABC report on him frequently in happy terms, or hold carefully orchestrated "donate to a politician" parties where lots of individuals get together and each donate the maximum amount allowed to the candidates...
The constitutional issue comes up because the way our current political system works (i.e. is driven by media exposure and advertising), it COSTS MONEY TO BE 'HEARD'. If, for example, you feel Rick Boucher's comparatively rational views on Intellectual Property accurately represent your own views, donating money to help him "get the word out" is arguably (and I'm sure you've all heard this phrase before) "Your way of saying that you agree". In summary, in this context "spending money" = a form of expression = political speech, which is SPECIFICALLY the sort of speech the 1st amendment is intended to protect.
Maybe there is a need for "Government intervention"...but if so, I think the intervention called for is from the Executive, not legislative branch.
Or, put simply, "How about enforcing the copyright laws we already have before demanding more?!?!?"
Surely the cost to the nation of funding a "task force to find and punish blatant copyright violators" would be far less than the horrible drain on the already-stagnant economy here that this draconian legislation would cause...
"American Government only represents 2 parties, Itself and Large Corporations."
I've said it before, and I'll say it again...
That's only ONE party. The American Government IS a "Large Corporation". Or, perhaps, a collection of large corporations (if one considers the various departments and the 5-10 different federal police forces [no joke, think about it - FBI, CIA, NSA, Secret Service, BATF, Border Patrol, US Customs...and that's not even counting the formal military branches...] as separate "legal entities"). Either way "Large Corporations" covers both the government AND its controlling donors and media types.
Okay, now this sounds vaguely obscene, and yet strangely apropos considering the way the organizations being discussed here treat people...("RamButt-ology?")
At the serious risk of being stamped "Flamebait" or "Troll" by moderating Kidman fans, I'm going to suggest you invest in an inflatable doll for the naked twister instead...(This IS on-topic - read on...)
One of the things Scientology "training" does is wipe out any emotional capacity one has. Have you ever watched any of the various scientologist actors/actresses? Watch their eyes. They're DEAD! The only emotional-like expression they have left to them above the nose is to squint and wrinkle their brows (which, in my opinion, looks really funny when they're supposed to be portraying anger, since it just makes them look frustrated and confused instead...) because the muscles that make those expressions are the only ones under voluntary control (much of the facial muscles involved in emotional expression up there are actually operated by involuntary reflex, apparently). Like realistic latex puppets instead of people...("John Travolta, brought to you by the creators of The Muppets[tm]...")
Somehow, a game of "naked twister" with a scientology mannequin just doesn't appeal to me...
The "focus problem" that I've been whining piteously about for so long has been fixed, so I can now actually post to Slashdot with Konqueror in KDE3...
KDE3 at this point seems to be in really good shape. There are only 1.5 problems left that I can even think of at the moment...(maybe less...)
The ".5" is the clipboard and cutting-and-pasting. Right now, it seems a bit inconsistent in some spots (especially cutting-and-pasting from within kmail [i.e. message source or headers when reporting spam]), which is annoying, but not fatal.
The other problem isn't KDE's fault - I just can't get Quanta to start under KDE3 is all (is Quanta dead? Development on it seems to have sputtered to a stop at the moment [though about once a week CVS shows a change to a configuration file or something of the sort]...)
Otherwise, I consider myself "officially" using KDE3 full-time now. I'm quite pleased with it. Konqueror in particular seems to have gotten significantly better (and I think it was pretty good before) at dealing with the more esoteric web-sites that used to give it problems (javascript/ecmascript support is greatly improved...)
Actually, I don't think that's it (I'm trying to figure out which one that they SELL is GPL as well...). He's specifically talking about SELLING something and demanding money to see the source code, but they've got download links to Korelib right their on their own page for it and no place to click "add to cart" for it...
Thanks for that. Now I'll be having nightmares about tiny green scaley children wearing pointy red hats, lurking around unsuspecting people's gardens...
What's your mailing address, so I can send you my therapy bills?:-)
It seems Mr. Gordon's complaint with the GPL is similar in nature (but not quite the same in "spirit") to Microsoft's - "If someone releases software under the GPL, the license says that if you redistribute something made with it, you have to also make your changes available under the GPL, and, gosh, that's just too much hassle. No fair." (more or less).
That's what the GPL is FOR. Now, don't misunderstand - I'm GLAD to see (believe it or not) proprietary software available as a choice, whether I would choose to buy any or not. I also have no problem with a company choosing to avoid GPL-licensed code because they don't want to deal with the hassle of contributing back to the community in the manner that the GPL requires. I further sympathise and agree with Mr Gordon's characterization of the handful of loud, self-appointed "GPL Zealots" that tarnish the reputation of the more numerous but quieter "normal" people who just happen to agree with the GPL's philosophy.
What I DO dislike is hearing companies' ever more frequent complaints about not having permission to do whatever they want, at whatever price they want, with GPL-licensed source code. First MS, now TheKompany (and surely I've missed one or two others in between, didn't Caldera or someone from Mandrake or Red Hat say something similar a while back? I forget...). It seems obvious to me that if a programmer offers original source code under the GPL license, it's BECAUSE they don't want their work to be capitalized on without the "community" benefiting at the same time. In that respect, the writing in this opinion piece might have been "I went outside while it was raining, and I discovered that I got all wet, and people who I visited sometimes got unreasonably upset when I dripped all over their floor, and some of them got irrationally upset when I told them I wouldn't dry myself off before coming in if they didn't supply the towel for it themselves. Therefore, I felt compelled to write another editorial explaining why rain is bad for people who go outside..."
Please excuse the touch of "rant" in this post. In fairness I should emphasize that I can't fault TheKompany themselves too much, as they DO seem to contribute in one way or another back to the community (e.g. the GPL'd version of Kivio in the KOffice CVS), and even their "proprietary" license seems pretty darn reasonable as far as proprietary licenses go, but the continued complaints by proprietary software companies in general that the GPL doesn't let them redistribute proprietary, modified versions with restrictions (and typically at the same price as completely proprietary software developed from scratch, it would seem) and the implication that follows that it is therefore somehow "unfair" or unduly burdensome is just getting on my nerves...
(On the plus side, at least the complaints reaffirm that if you don't want your software to be "hijacked" for the profit of proprietary software companies [which here I define as companies whose business model is "charge for permission to use software"], the GPL will keep them away...[and for the moderators reflexively reaching for the 'flamebait' button, I reiterate - I'm not accusing TheKompany, specifically, of doing this])
There's a subtle difference here, if I remember the bizarre laws in the US concerning the US Postal Service...
When a spammer abuses the network and your email account, he/she/it is NOT paying for the distribution, and is, in a way, "tresspassing" on your "property"...
If I recall correctly (I may not), in some bizarre, technical, legal way, "your" mailbox (the physical one that the USPS delivers to) is ACTUALLY the property of the USPS (not sure how this works exactly, but I THINK this is law so as to put the Big Guns of the Federal Government behind dealing with illegal abuses of the Postal Service, rather than having to rely on individuals to report and accuse abusers). If this is true, then when a junkmailer pays the post office to deliver a bunch of crap to your address, it's only (again, in a technical, legal sort of way) the USPS' resources that are being used, not "yours".
I may be totally off base here - if somebody with a better understanding of USPS-related law is reading this, I'd love a clarification...
At any rate, the summary is that with junkmail, the junkmailer is covering the bulk of the cost to deliver, while with spam, the ISP's and recipients are covering the bulk of the costs. (Looked at another way - you don't pay the USPS to RECEIVE mail, so you're not really losing anything. You DO pay your ISP to recieve E-mail [as part of the cost of the rest of the ISP service] so receiving email does actually cost you something, even if it's a tiny amount.)
Besides, paper is recyclable (though I suppose electrons are, too, come to think of it...)
I find it pretty funny that evidently the budgeteers were taken in by all of this rhetoric, but slashdot readers can spot the flaws in a matter of minutes...
Mind you, it's not ALL bad - spinoff technologies from the otherwise flashy and unlikely projects might actually turn out to be useful (presumably the idea is that the shoes would then somehow absorb the impact to "recharge" after the jump, which doesn't seem too practical on a human being, but might have applications elsewhere in mechanical engineering, and the "fake blood" they come up with to test the pressure suits might turn out to have medical uses, and so on).
This probably isn't the most cost-effective way to GET to those spinoffs, but what can you do?...
Slashdot Mirror
NO. There is a HUGE difference between "providing" and "not forbidding".
It's the difference between "requiring all DVD's to be unencrypted and lacking region codes" and "not throwing people in jail for bypassing these restrictions in a reasonable and fair manner".
From the advogato articles quote on what constitutes a so-called "IPR impairing license":
[...]or (c) be redistributable at no charge.
Apparently, merely "not charging money for redistribution" counts as "IPR Impairing" according to the whacked-out crack-smokers at MS's legal department...
You mean the Corporate-Bought Disney-Trashes-the-Public Act? :-)
That would be both scary AND irritating - "Free" Use (both "Gratis" and "Libre") was the whole POINT of the Ogg file format and Vorbis sound codec. This bill would make this goal ILLEGAL. (shudder)....
Maybe they consider the lobbyists to be the TRUE "artists". After all, they must be doing some pretty creative work on the legislators to get some of the crap introduced and passed that they have...
About Konqueror's javascript support being vastly updated. The only site left that I have javascript problems with is atomfilm's screwy setup (the "watch film" links on the pages are some funky javascript routines that don't seem to work...the stderr text mentions an attempt at"'VBGetWindowsMediaVersion'"...)
I'm using CVS from yesterday. The only problems I'm running into now are some oddities in kate (the text editor) and the fact that there's STILL not a version of the GPL Quanta that will start up for me so far...everything else is beautiful.
Holy........Are they saying the "corporate death penalty" (revocation of corporate charter) was actually USED by the Government against a fellow corporation?????
Could be a nice precedent...
And since when has THAT stopped corporate entities from abusing it anyway?
Maybe, but note this line in the BBC article that somebody mentioned previously:
"He has provisionally identified the sub-mature female as being Haliphron atlanticus."This one was still a kid. Wonder how big Ma and Pa Octopus were?....
I'll agree with this - when one WILLINGLY invites a business to communicate with them by email, there's not problem. I'm still allowing (of all people) X-10 to email me (once each day, talk about overkill), since I ordered the $6.00 special introductory "FireCracker interface kit" years ago when they were mentioned on slashdot. I'm waiting for them to have another really good deal on something besides their little spy cameras (a bargain on their two-way computer interface and some indoor motion sensors at a ridiculously low price would be nice. More toys for me.)...
What's really funny to me is that I just yesterday(!) got around to finally hooking up the "FireCracker" kit. I can at least say that it works, and was well worth the $6.00 I paid for it...
To get back to the original topic, though, I think the original poster MEANT that there were no legitimate "unsolicited" email marketing programs (in an age when nearly everyone gets ONLY unsolicited advertisements, it's easy to forget that there are a few rare, legitimate solicited ones out there as well)...
I hope not. It just occurs to me that this might be a "derivative work" according to the MPAA...
I think most of us rational people realize that "alternate soundtracks" are perfectly harmless if not actually helpful to the bottom line of companies whose DVDs are getting alternate tracks made for them, but I think most of us recognize just how rational the MPAA is...
If they do attack this, at least the the "squashing of free speech" aspect of their current campaigns will be more blatant (if such a thing is possible), and if they DON'T, then we'll have another legitimate reason for 'fair-use' space-shifted copies of DVD movies (to make SVCD's with the alternate soundtracks for personal use on our standalone players, of course.)
Slightly offtopic, but I've been told that it REALLY stands for "Meal Refusing to Evacuate"...
It used to be that the "focus" on a webpage was always(?) on the links on the page in KDE3. So, in other words, as I'm typing here in the textarea to fill in this web form, the "focus" is here (and if I hit ENTER, it should do whatever "Enter" means where it is focussed, i.e. it should put a newline in the textarea). Previously, once I hit "enter" in the textarea, the FOCUS was still on the first link in the page, even though it's the textarea that the focus SHOULD have been on, since I'm typing in it. Upon hitting enter, it would go to the first link in the page, rather than adding a line to the text...
(I don't know how coherent that explanation was, but hopefully it helps. The short version is that you couldn't hit "enter" anywhere in a webpage without having it act as though you just clicked on the currently-focussed link on the page...)
Look at it this way - in order to have even a remote chance of getting voted into office, you must have enough "fame" for the voter to know you exist and what you stand for. That's the purpose of the various marketing and advertising stunts that we call a "political campaign". This, of course, costs money.
This "reform" basically limits how much money a single "entity" can give a candidate or party. That means that with the passage of this bill, only people who are ALREADY "famous" (i.e. incumbents and favorites of the media corporations) have enough exposure to raise enough money for a "visible" campaign - they're the only ones who can make up in volume (number of contributors) what is lost in "total donation per capita".
A real "outsider", who isn't already well-entrenched in the existing power structure could previously have hoped for the slim, but conceivable, chance that a few wealthy donors might be willing to contribute enough for him or her to be heard and possibly elected (where they might, possibly, do something about the problems that have spread over the current system like mildew). NOW...they're screwed. They aren't already famous enough to get millions of people to give them the smaller donations they require, and are now ALSO forbidden to make up the difference with larger donors.
In summary, this "reform" serves far more to protect the incumbent politicians, parties, and 'old-boys network' from competition than to prevent actual abuses. (As far as I know, although Disney can't write a big, fat check to Hollings after this bill, they CAN, if they want, have their news anchors on ABC report on him frequently in happy terms, or hold carefully orchestrated "donate to a politician" parties where lots of individuals get together and each donate the maximum amount allowed to the candidates...
The constitutional issue comes up because the way our current political system works (i.e. is driven by media exposure and advertising), it COSTS MONEY TO BE 'HEARD'. If, for example, you feel Rick Boucher's comparatively rational views on Intellectual Property accurately represent your own views, donating money to help him "get the word out" is arguably (and I'm sure you've all heard this phrase before) "Your way of saying that you agree". In summary, in this context "spending money" = a form of expression = political speech, which is SPECIFICALLY the sort of speech the 1st amendment is intended to protect.
Maybe there is a need for "Government intervention"...but if so, I think the intervention called for is from the Executive, not legislative branch.
Or, put simply, "How about enforcing the copyright laws we already have before demanding more?!?!?"
Surely the cost to the nation of funding a "task force to find and punish blatant copyright violators" would be far less than the horrible drain on the already-stagnant economy here that this draconian legislation would cause...
I've said it before, and I'll say it again...
That's only ONE party. The American Government IS a "Large Corporation". Or, perhaps, a collection of large corporations (if one considers the various departments and the 5-10 different federal police forces [no joke, think about it - FBI, CIA, NSA, Secret Service, BATF, Border Patrol, US Customs...and that's not even counting the formal military branches...] as separate "legal entities"). Either way "Large Corporations" covers both the government AND its controlling donors and media types.
Okay, now this sounds vaguely obscene, and yet strangely apropos considering the way the organizations being discussed here treat people...("RamButt-ology?")
On a related note, I find it hilariously ironic that Scientology says that Christianity is the result of an alien mind-control implant...
At the serious risk of being stamped "Flamebait" or "Troll" by moderating Kidman fans, I'm going to suggest you invest in an inflatable doll for the naked twister instead...(This IS on-topic - read on...)
One of the things Scientology "training" does is wipe out any emotional capacity one has. Have you ever watched any of the various scientologist actors/actresses? Watch their eyes. They're DEAD! The only emotional-like expression they have left to them above the nose is to squint and wrinkle their brows (which, in my opinion, looks really funny when they're supposed to be portraying anger, since it just makes them look frustrated and confused instead...) because the muscles that make those expressions are the only ones under voluntary control (much of the facial muscles involved in emotional expression up there are actually operated by involuntary reflex, apparently). Like realistic latex puppets instead of people...("John Travolta, brought to you by the creators of The Muppets[tm]...")
Somehow, a game of "naked twister" with a scientology mannequin just doesn't appeal to me...
The "focus problem" that I've been whining piteously about for so long has been fixed, so I can now actually post to Slashdot with Konqueror in KDE3...
KDE3 at this point seems to be in really good shape. There are only 1.5 problems left that I can even think of at the moment...(maybe less...)
The ".5" is the clipboard and cutting-and-pasting. Right now, it seems a bit inconsistent in some spots (especially cutting-and-pasting from within kmail [i.e. message source or headers when reporting spam]), which is annoying, but not fatal.
The other problem isn't KDE's fault - I just can't get Quanta to start under KDE3 is all (is Quanta dead? Development on it seems to have sputtered to a stop at the moment [though about once a week CVS shows a change to a configuration file or something of the sort]...)
Otherwise, I consider myself "officially" using KDE3 full-time now. I'm quite pleased with it. Konqueror in particular seems to have gotten significantly better (and I think it was pretty good before) at dealing with the more esoteric web-sites that used to give it problems (javascript/ecmascript support is greatly improved...)
Actually, I don't think that's it (I'm trying to figure out which one that they SELL is GPL as well...). He's specifically talking about SELLING something and demanding money to see the source code, but they've got download links to Korelib right their on their own page for it and no place to click "add to cart" for it...
Thanks for that. Now I'll be having nightmares about tiny green scaley children wearing pointy red hats, lurking around unsuspecting people's gardens...
What's your mailing address, so I can send you my therapy bills? :-)
It seems Mr. Gordon's complaint with the GPL is similar in nature (but not quite the same in "spirit") to Microsoft's - "If someone releases software under the GPL, the license says that if you redistribute something made with it, you have to also make your changes available under the GPL, and, gosh, that's just too much hassle. No fair." (more or less).
That's what the GPL is FOR. Now, don't misunderstand - I'm GLAD to see (believe it or not) proprietary software available as a choice, whether I would choose to buy any or not. I also have no problem with a company choosing to avoid GPL-licensed code because they don't want to deal with the hassle of contributing back to the community in the manner that the GPL requires. I further sympathise and agree with Mr Gordon's characterization of the handful of loud, self-appointed "GPL Zealots" that tarnish the reputation of the more numerous but quieter "normal" people who just happen to agree with the GPL's philosophy.
What I DO dislike is hearing companies' ever more frequent complaints about not having permission to do whatever they want, at whatever price they want, with GPL-licensed source code. First MS, now TheKompany (and surely I've missed one or two others in between, didn't Caldera or someone from Mandrake or Red Hat say something similar a while back? I forget...). It seems obvious to me that if a programmer offers original source code under the GPL license, it's BECAUSE they don't want their work to be capitalized on without the "community" benefiting at the same time. In that respect, the writing in this opinion piece might have been "I went outside while it was raining, and I discovered that I got all wet, and people who I visited sometimes got unreasonably upset when I dripped all over their floor, and some of them got irrationally upset when I told them I wouldn't dry myself off before coming in if they didn't supply the towel for it themselves. Therefore, I felt compelled to write another editorial explaining why rain is bad for people who go outside..."
Please excuse the touch of "rant" in this post. In fairness I should emphasize that I can't fault TheKompany themselves too much, as they DO seem to contribute in one way or another back to the community (e.g. the GPL'd version of Kivio in the KOffice CVS), and even their "proprietary" license seems pretty darn reasonable as far as proprietary licenses go, but the continued complaints by proprietary software companies in general that the GPL doesn't let them redistribute proprietary, modified versions with restrictions (and typically at the same price as completely proprietary software developed from scratch, it would seem) and the implication that follows that it is therefore somehow "unfair" or unduly burdensome is just getting on my nerves...
(On the plus side, at least the complaints reaffirm that if you don't want your software to be "hijacked" for the profit of proprietary software companies [which here I define as companies whose business model is "charge for permission to use software"], the GPL will keep them away...[and for the moderators reflexively reaching for the 'flamebait' button, I reiterate - I'm not accusing TheKompany, specifically, of doing this])
There's a subtle difference here, if I remember the bizarre laws in the US concerning the US Postal Service...
When a spammer abuses the network and your email account, he/she/it is NOT paying for the distribution, and is, in a way, "tresspassing" on your "property"...
If I recall correctly (I may not), in some bizarre, technical, legal way, "your" mailbox (the physical one that the USPS delivers to) is ACTUALLY the property of the USPS (not sure how this works exactly, but I THINK this is law so as to put the Big Guns of the Federal Government behind dealing with illegal abuses of the Postal Service, rather than having to rely on individuals to report and accuse abusers). If this is true, then when a junkmailer pays the post office to deliver a bunch of crap to your address, it's only (again, in a technical, legal sort of way) the USPS' resources that are being used, not "yours".
I may be totally off base here - if somebody with a better understanding of USPS-related law is reading this, I'd love a clarification...
At any rate, the summary is that with junkmail, the junkmailer is covering the bulk of the cost to deliver, while with spam, the ISP's and recipients are covering the bulk of the costs. (Looked at another way - you don't pay the USPS to RECEIVE mail, so you're not really losing anything. You DO pay your ISP to recieve E-mail [as part of the cost of the rest of the ISP service] so receiving email does actually cost you something, even if it's a tiny amount.)
Besides, paper is recyclable (though I suppose electrons are, too, come to think of it...)
"Green Clovers, Purple Hearts, Black Rifles..." ("The Taliban is after me lucky charms(tm)!"...)
I find it pretty funny that evidently the budgeteers were taken in by all of this rhetoric, but slashdot readers can spot the flaws in a matter of minutes...
Mind you, it's not ALL bad - spinoff technologies from the otherwise flashy and unlikely projects might actually turn out to be useful (presumably the idea is that the shoes would then somehow absorb the impact to "recharge" after the jump, which doesn't seem too practical on a human being, but might have applications elsewhere in mechanical engineering, and the "fake blood" they come up with to test the pressure suits might turn out to have medical uses, and so on).
This probably isn't the most cost-effective way to GET to those spinoffs, but what can you do?...