Great... next thing you know, Billy-boy's travelling back in time to the 1960s and building a giant "lay-zurr". (It's a well-known fact that the Evil Empire is a Seattle-based corporation!)
Fortunately, GNU Time Transporter 0.1 was just released, so the world will be saved by Richard M. "Danger" Stallman.
All right! It's the world's first modular dinosaur. Built from existing components, no less!
Although, there might be some patent problems if they used human bones... I mean, won't the companies that have patents on portions of our genomes be pissed if we start building other creatures out of human parts?
Even if I knew that *my* vote would be the deciding vote that put Bush in the whitehouse over Gore, I'd *still* vote for Ralph Nader. The thoughts of throwing my vote away by voting for a Republicrat is just too depressing. I wanna see Ralph get more than 5% this year and put the Green Party, and more importantly it's issues, on the map.
That's exactly how I feel. (Interestingly enough, a pseudorandom friend I was talking to the other day said roughly the same thing.)
It's great to know that I'm not the only one.
Now, if 5% of voters would vote for Nader, that's 1 in 20. So, if each of them successfully bugged 19 others to look at the site... (of course, nearly 5% of those others would already be voting for Mr. Nader.)
Can voters ever be convinced that voting for the "status quo" candidates (i.e. either of the front-runners), will bring no substantial changes for the better?
How is it that third-party candidates are viewed by the public as "throwing away your vote" when it seems like they're the only way not to throw away your vote?
A friend of mine wore (and probably still does) a pentacle necklace, with the cup-and-dagger on the back (he calls it "the chalice and the phallus"; says it's a Wiccan symbol. He's pagan, but not Wiccan, although his g/f is.)
He explained that the points of the star represent the points of the body, with the top one representing the head. If the pentagram is right-side up, as it usually is in neopagan displays, it means "mind over body." The Satanist's pentagram is upside down, representing "body over mind."
What if you could do the scrambling yourself, y'know--client-side? Chop off a few digits of accuracy to make any commercial/governmental voyeurs wonder exactly where you are.
Then you'd have the global, digital equivalent of a cloak of displacement!
Of course, they could just beam you a personal, encrypted ad that says, "Psst... hey you... go into the Fry's Electronics on nth street and pick up the last special preview edition Playstation 2 gaming console, cheap!".
Then all they have to do is wait 10 minutes and aim their satellite-based laser death rays at Fry's, instead of trying to hit a moving target...
See? Free enterprise really does make things more convenient!
'Misinformed' is not knowing the statistic. 'Ignorant' is repeating a highly questionable statistic in a public forum as if it were fact.
'Uninformed' is not knowing the fact. 'Misinformed' is knowing an incorrect, but plausibly substitutable fact which one sincerely, and reasonably believes to be true. 'Ignorant' is when one should reasonably suspect that he's been misinformed, but chooses to 'ignore' it anyway, possibly for fear of admitting to oneself or others that he does not know the correct fact, and has been tricked into repeating an absurdly incorrect fact instead.
I think it's the latter in this case. Lars & company may be royally pissed when they find out that the mp3s being traded are hardly the "pristine master copies" they've been led to believe by NetPD, or their managers, or, most likely their lawyers (the only people who can still actually profit from this arrangement).
But, by then it may be too late for them to turn around and change their minds due to the sheer momentum of the whole process. They've got to save face somehow, and they're in a position where they'll piss some segment of their fans off no matter what they do, unless they get really creative.
However I may feel about the issue at large, I think Lars, et al. have done a respectable job sorting through the information they've been presented, and the conclusions they've drawn seem reasonable based upon that information.
So, although I certainly won't buy any Metallica CDs until the lawsuit is over (I refuse to fund this legal action.), I'm no longer going to automatically change the station whenever any Metallica song comes up on the radio. As Lars has said, it's important to separate the business and creative sides of the music.
Censorship is the responsibility of each individual nation-state. If you have been exposed to information which is illegal in your country, write to your local representative (if you still live in a representative government!). Also, be sure to specify whether you have stored said information in short-term or long-term memory so the technicians at the Re-Education Center can make loboto^H^H^H^H^H^Hcitizenship counseling as painless and efficient as possible.
Apparently France "realizes" that you can't beat fascism with liberty, equality and fraternity, and instead decided to fight fire with fire.
NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition! Our chief weapon is surprise.... surprise and fear.... fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise.... and ruthless efficiency.... Our three weapons are fear, surprise and ruthless efficiency.... and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our four.... no....
ROTFLMAO!
Who says that Monty Python quotes don't have practical value?
Oops! The first sentence should read, "One point I feel the author doesn't address adequately are three main 'pragmatic' (as opposed to idealistic) advantages of free software."
(I added the third while I was writing and forgot to update the beginning of the post)
One point I feel the author doesn't address adequately are two main "pragmatic" (as opposed to idealistic) advantages of free software.
The source code is available for peer review.
Portability.
Limitless custom features can be added by users.
Forget demonizing "commercial" developers on moral grounds for a sec; any software publisher whose distributed software doesn't have those three features is a publisher that I simply refuse to take seriously.
Also, there's always the "scratch the itch" factor. If Adobe systems wants to charge n-hundred bucks for Photoshop, that's their choice, but eventually you'll run into a bunch of savvy GIMP hackers eager to brew a free alternative. A side effect of the process used in attracting developers and building a "free-speech" project of that scale in an open environment is that it also becomes "free beer". And Adobe, or whoever, now has to compete, benefiting not only GIMP users, but average folks buying Photoshop for a more reasonable price than before.
Interestingly enough, that also provides a valid reason to revile Microsoft. If Windows controls the desktop, and MS makes Windows nasty to code in, then it becomes harder to port say, the GIMP, to Windows, prolonging the stranglehold of overpriced, proprietary software.
"It is high time for Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds to state publicly that they do not endorse the views of the gun lunatics, and that their cherished notion of freedom has nothing to do with the freedom to kill children and other innocents. That this has not happened is a sign of the distortion of the moral values of the free software movement."
What, pray tell, does gun control have to do with the free software movement?
If I were either RMS or Linus, I'd "state publicly" that I don't like having someone else tell me what my opinions are!
If anyone's up to writing a rebuttal to this guy's article, allow me to suggest the title, "The Ethics of Free Software Critics".
I agree. I miss OS/2 Warp 4... even though I only used it for a sustained two-week period during winter break two years ago, it was the happiest two weeks of my life;-).
I'd also like to take a moment of silence for that wonderful IRC client.... arrgh... for the life of me I can't remember it's name was... it had a default nick of "Momoboy" and...
<Sob...Sniffle...>
Say it ain't so!
Oh OS/2, how I miss you. Netscape 2.x, And TAPCIS, too.
Beloved OS, we eulogize you, And if I were awake, I'd make this a haiku
Remember that if Time-Warner and Di$ney hadn't lobbied Congress so hard, a lot of their characters and properties would have their copyrights expiring very soon.
The US Constitution grants Congress the power to grant copyrights for a limited time. If they keep upping the ante each time the deadline draws near, that is not "limited", because TW will never lose the copyrights of their characters to the public domain. Congress has overstepped its authority.
So, if TW invokes the DMCA to protect its characters, it's using an unconstitutional law to protect an unconstitutional franchise.
Normally, a copyright holder dies sometime, and their copyright fades. Not so for corporations like Time-Warner. Our legal system has been made into a twisted mockery of justice, in which immortal corporations are above the law.
The whole legal fiction of corporations being "persons" stems back to the 1886 Supreme Court decision in County of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad, in which the Court cited the "equal protection" clause of the fourteenth amendment. Equal. That means that the entire reason corporations are allowed to have rights as distinct entities is because all people have equal protection under the law.
This is a complete crock. Do the actions of corporations ever kill people? You betcha! So when was the last time you saw a corporation sentenced to death?
And, no, monopoly breakups don't count. Those are to keep the other corporations happy, and any benefit to real people is incidental.
Why do we as a society constantly reward and look up to these faceless legal machines which are designed to grow larger and make money at any cost?
The corporation may be an efficient way to run the economy, but it's a sick joke to even think of them as "persons". We need a system of laws that recognizes that corporations are a group of people, working together, and not some entity in and of itself.
Slashdot Mirror
Now that is interesting!
Although "Sealand" sounds suspiciously like "Sea World" ;-)
Fortunately, GNU Time Transporter 0.1 was just released, so the world will be saved by Richard M. "Danger" Stallman.
Gee, it's nice to see that they've finally embraced the concept of Open Source. Too bad they also "extended" it.
They can have all the source they want, if they're willing to disassemble the binaries and read the opcodes in asm!
Other than that, they'll only get my source <heston>"when they pry it out of my cold, dead fingers.</heston>
Or if I place it under the GPL. (O Ye Double-Edged Sword of GNU!)
Although, there might be some patent problems if they used human bones... I mean, won't the companies that have patents on portions of our genomes be pissed if we start building other creatures out of human parts?
I can picture a friendly-looking moustacioed nerd passing out cans of openCOLA...
Nerd: Want some free openCOLA?
Kernel Hacker: Is it free like "free speech" or like "free cola"?
Nerd: Umm... both, I guess... just try some...
Kernel Hacker: Does it have lots and lots of caffeine?
Nerd: This stuff makes Jolt(tm) seem like rainwater in comparison!
K.H.: Is that normal rain or acid rain?
Nerd: Just try it. Come on... the first one's free... everyone's doing it... don't you want to be '1337?
K.H.: Not particularly... but that stuff sounds powerful... lemme try some...
Nerd: (snickering, hands over a can)
K.H.: Ahhhh... this stuff is goo-- URRk! (Plop! The poor Kernel Hacker falls to the ground...)
Nerd peels off fake moustache revealing that he is actually Bill Gates.
Bill: Mua ha ha ha! That's what you get for writing xbill back in college!
A Large, Bald Goon (Ballmer?) drags the corpse of the poor hacker away, then eats it.
That's exactly how I feel. (Interestingly enough, a pseudorandom friend I was talking to the other day said roughly the same thing.)
It's great to know that I'm not the only one.
Now, if 5% of voters would vote for Nader, that's 1 in 20. So, if each of them successfully bugged 19 others to look at the site... (of course, nearly 5% of those others would already be voting for Mr. Nader.)
<shameless plug>
Anyone whose curiosity is piqued should check out Adbusters (especially this page) and the Ralph Nader campaign site.
</shameless plug>
How is it that third-party candidates are viewed by the public as "throwing away your vote" when it seems like they're the only way not to throw away your vote?
He explained that the points of the star represent the points of the body, with the top one representing the head. If the pentagram is right-side up, as it usually is in neopagan displays, it means "mind over body." The Satanist's pentagram is upside down, representing "body over mind."
Pretty soon they're gonna ban sales on pentagrams, demon-summoning paraphenalia, and the Necronomicon ex Mortii.
Is there anywhere on the web where it's still safe to sell Evil Things?
That would make us... Poland.
Let's brace ourselves for the blitzkrieg of Compascionate Corporati$m.
No, it just means that now they appear in an HUD on your personal VR goggles, superimposed over your normal visual field.
Then you'd have the global, digital equivalent of a cloak of displacement!
Of course, they could just beam you a personal, encrypted ad that says, "Psst... hey you... go into the Fry's Electronics on nth street and pick up the last special preview edition Playstation 2 gaming console, cheap!".
Then all they have to do is wait 10 minutes and aim their satellite-based laser death rays at Fry's, instead of trying to hit a moving target...
See? Free enterprise really does make things more convenient!
'Uninformed' is not knowing the fact. 'Misinformed' is knowing an incorrect, but plausibly substitutable fact which one sincerely, and reasonably believes to be true. 'Ignorant' is when one should reasonably suspect that he's been misinformed, but chooses to 'ignore' it anyway, possibly for fear of admitting to oneself or others that he does not know the correct fact, and has been tricked into repeating an absurdly incorrect fact instead.
I think it's the latter in this case. Lars & company may be royally pissed when they find out that the mp3s being traded are hardly the "pristine master copies" they've been led to believe by NetPD, or their managers, or, most likely their lawyers (the only people who can still actually profit from this arrangement).
But, by then it may be too late for them to turn around and change their minds due to the sheer momentum of the whole process. They've got to save face somehow, and they're in a position where they'll piss some segment of their fans off no matter what they do, unless they get really creative.
However I may feel about the issue at large, I think Lars, et al. have done a respectable job sorting through the information they've been presented, and the conclusions they've drawn seem reasonable based upon that information.
So, although I certainly won't buy any Metallica CDs until the lawsuit is over (I refuse to fund this legal action.), I'm no longer going to automatically change the station whenever any Metallica song comes up on the radio. As Lars has said, it's important to separate the business and creative sides of the music.
I guess the this whole article answers this one: Ask Slashdot: Can Web Sites Go Offshore For Free Speech?
Apparently France "realizes" that you can't beat fascism with liberty, equality and fraternity, and instead decided to fight fire with fire.
Nonsense! Genghis Kahn appeared in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. And he was one of the good guys, no less. Therefore, he must be all right!
ROTFLMAO!
Who says that Monty Python quotes don't have practical value?
The author hiself villifies taxpayer-supported free software, but shouldn't something that's paid for by the public be freely available to the public?
(I added the third while I was writing and forgot to update the beginning of the post)
Forget demonizing "commercial" developers on moral grounds for a sec; any software publisher whose distributed software doesn't have those three features is a publisher that I simply refuse to take seriously.
Also, there's always the "scratch the itch" factor. If Adobe systems wants to charge n-hundred bucks for Photoshop, that's their choice, but eventually you'll run into a bunch of savvy GIMP hackers eager to brew a free alternative. A side effect of the process used in attracting developers and building a "free-speech" project of that scale in an open environment is that it also becomes "free beer". And Adobe, or whoever, now has to compete, benefiting not only GIMP users, but average folks buying Photoshop for a more reasonable price than before.
Interestingly enough, that also provides a valid reason to revile Microsoft. If Windows controls the desktop, and MS makes Windows nasty to code in, then it becomes harder to port say, the GIMP, to Windows, prolonging the stranglehold of overpriced, proprietary software.
Well, there goes most of that guy's essay!
What, pray tell, does gun control have to do with the free software movement?
If I were either RMS or Linus, I'd "state publicly" that I don't like having someone else tell me what my opinions are!
If anyone's up to writing a rebuttal to this guy's article, allow me to suggest the title, "The Ethics of Free Software Critics".
unwarranted (n-wôrn-td, -wr-) adj.
Having no justification; groundless: unwarranted interference. See Synonyms at baseless.
Gotta love subconscious word choice, eh? ;-)
I agree. I miss OS/2 Warp 4... even though I only used it for a sustained two-week period during winter break two years ago, it was the happiest two weeks of my life ;-).
I'd also like to take a moment of silence for that wonderful IRC client.... arrgh... for the life of me I can't remember it's name was... it had a default nick of "Momoboy" and...
<Sob...Sniffle...>
Say it ain't so!
Oh OS/2, how I miss you.
Netscape 2.x,
And TAPCIS, too.
Beloved OS, we eulogize you,
And if I were awake,
I'd make this a haiku
It's ok, folks... just let it out...
<Sigh...>
This author is creating a dangerous precedent which will threaten Intellectual Property!
If people can read books for free, all authors will starve!
And what's this "library" I keep hearing about?
</sarcasm>
The US Constitution grants Congress the power to grant copyrights for a limited time. If they keep upping the ante each time the deadline draws near, that is not "limited", because TW will never lose the copyrights of their characters to the public domain. Congress has overstepped its authority.
So, if TW invokes the DMCA to protect its characters, it's using an unconstitutional law to protect an unconstitutional franchise.
Normally, a copyright holder dies sometime, and their copyright fades. Not so for corporations like Time-Warner. Our legal system has been made into a twisted mockery of justice, in which immortal corporations are above the law.
The whole legal fiction of corporations being "persons" stems back to the 1886 Supreme Court decision in County of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad, in which the Court cited the "equal protection" clause of the fourteenth amendment. Equal. That means that the entire reason corporations are allowed to have rights as distinct entities is because all people have equal protection under the law.
This is a complete crock. Do the actions of corporations ever kill people? You betcha! So when was the last time you saw a corporation sentenced to death?
And, no, monopoly breakups don't count. Those are to keep the other corporations happy, and any benefit to real people is incidental.
Why do we as a society constantly reward and look up to these faceless legal machines which are designed to grow larger and make money at any cost?
The corporation may be an efficient way to run the economy, but it's a sick joke to even think of them as "persons". We need a system of laws that recognizes that corporations are a group of people, working together, and not some entity in and of itself.