Sure, and good luck to you when your CDs, movies, books, messages, DNA upgrades are no longer your property but Corporate property, and just leased to you with restrictive licenses.
I'm sure you have noticed that the corporations are trying to get property rights and monopolies over everything (hence "intellectual property"). And whether they succeeed is NOTHING to do with big or small government, it's to do with whether they can get away with it or not. They have lots of money to keep trying and trying.
Things will NOT be better if you had a small government stripped of power that has allowed Corporations to have property rights over "everything". A corrupt small and powerless government that lets corrupt big powerful corporations do whatever they want is just going to be as bad.
People who focus on quantity of Government and not quality of Government are stupid.
> "We need to prevent treating the exchange markets like some huge gambling casino."
Actually there's a big difference already.
In casinos you typically gamble with your money and not a pool of money that you took from some pensioners to "invest". Or at least if you get caught doing the latter and lose big time, you go to jail.
In contrast in "high finance" you have companies gambling with other people's money, and during the winning streaks, the gamblers and their bosses pay themselves big bonuses. When there's a big loss, they pay themselves a smaller bonus and then tell the pensioners that the "perfect storm" happened and all the money is lost (or even ask for a bailout). And unless the gamblers have been really stupid (and/or doing it Madoff style), they don't go to jail. Many get new jobs months later to do the same thing all over again - they made their bosses rich, so why wouldn't similar companies hire them?
They're in the business of transferring money from the stupid to the smart.
> Yes, as opposed to the Republican and Democrat presidents and Congress who respect it oh so much.
Ah, but why do they have to respect it so much? The last I checked, about 99% of the voters who count (i.e. the ones that vote) vote for either the Republicans or the Democrats.
So the people (who bothered to speak) have spoken and 99% of them have said "keep doing what you're doing". And if the Republicans/Democrats really have been trampling on the Constitution, the people clearly don't care enough, or they are sending the wrong message.
My point still stands, the People can tell the Government - "hey you haven't been respecting the Constitution, we're not going to vote for you this time round". If the People don't do that that's not the problem of not being libertarian enough.
In contrast the citizens can't really tell Corporations "you disrespected our precious Constitution so we're not going to vote for you this time". Since according to you it does NOT apply to them, thus logically if the Corporations end up having more and more power over greater and greater areas in the lives of citizens, it means the Constitution becomes less and less relevant.
And I'm going to laugh at anyone who says "But people could vote with their wallets". Given the way the voters have been voting with the ballot box (which only involves thinking a bit harder once every few years), guess how they are going to be voting with their wallets.
Say you had a US Government run/owned wikipedia/twitter[1]. If they censored stuff, you could go up to them and say "hey this is unconstitutional!". Can't do that for Wikipedia. If in practice that doesn't matter, then in practice the US Constitution doesn't matter.
[1] A Government run/owned Car Company on the other hand...;)
> How could it possibly be? Wikipedia isn't a government entity.
I'm curious - so which items in the US bill of rights stuff don't apply to Corporations or other Organizations?
Imagine what would happen if the Libertarians get their way and there isn't much Government left to respect their precious Constitution in a meaningful way.
"The more wrong way is to start a brand new article about your company. Not only will you have trouble with policy, but imagine if you succeed! Then you'll have a page that you have to constantly monitor against vandalism, and you could lose control of it to some disgruntled former employee who can dig up true unflattering information and keep it in place permanently. Besides, how many people would read the article anyway?"
That's terrible reasoning. Even if you don't start a new article some disgruntled former employee could. At least creating a decent article about your company makes it more likely for a random wikipedia user/admin to revert the page back to your original if there's some clear vandalism- this means less work for you. Whereas if the disgruntled person started the page first, you'd be at a disadvantage - there's nothing to revert to.
For example, a random person might easily revert a page that just says "Assholes" to your original. In contrast if someone creates a page about your company that just says "Assholes", a random person is far less likely to replace it with an entire page of content about your company.
> The fact that the brain will, fairly swiftly, being interpreting electrical pulses on the tongue as visual input blows my insufficiently capacious mind.
It shouldn't if you've played that game where people write letters on your back (or hand or elsewhere) and you are supposed to "read" them by touch alone.
Anyway, add: 1) higher resolution 2) alternate input channels (tongue is rather inconvenient) 3) output (there's tech that allows humans and other animals to control stuff just by thinking) 4) wireless/wired networking. 5) thought macros (plus escape sequences and brain sleep detection, to prevent accidental activation) 6) a portable computer system with a long battery life and a smart program on it. 7) room/area servers
And you'll get augmented reality, virtual telepathy and telekinesis.
Point them to a webserver under your control and have it serve up _your_ "ads". Could be reminders or "random quotes".
Back when I administered a company's firewall I did something like that on April Fool's day. Only a few noticed. No, I didn't get sacked for it (anyway it did save bandwidth).
I suppose most people back then didn't really surf the web.
For long weekends how about recreational space stations? With various stuff like small parks, swimming pools, flying areas (wings available for rent), and fun "low/intermediate G" environments.
Going to the moon or earth every long weekend would just be too expensive for many.
Build a good enough recreational space station and maybe tourists from the Earth would pay lots of money to visit it.
After the Iran-Iraq war was over, Saddam even spoke to the US ambassador and complained about Kuwait.
And the US ambassador (April Glaspie) said: "I think I understand this. I have lived here for years. I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.
I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 60's. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly. With regard to all of this, can I ask you to see how the issue appears to us? "
After that discussion, how was Saddam to know that the USA would be against them in that war? Don't forget the US actually supported them in their war against Iran.
So the Iraq-Kuwait war began, and then the USA came and smacked Iraq.
And this is how the coins go round, out of your pockets and into certain people's pockets:).
Actually what's possible now already is virtual telepathy and telekinesis.
We already have humans and other primates controlling devices with just thought alone. We also have the blind seeing (just not so well), so that proves that the brain can adapt and add "input ports" (google for seeing tongue).
So just implant a brain-interface input/output interface, connect it to a computer that recognizes thought macros, and connect that computer to wireless network interfaces and other I/O devices ( cameras, microphones etc). And voila, virtual telepathy and telekinesis. You can control stuff in a room that supports it, you can instantaneously think of talking to a friend and do it, or think of sending what you see to your friend and do it.
Amongst the problems are safety, reliability, cost and of course acceptance - but kids nowadays don't seem to have any problems implanting nonfunctional crap into their bodies, so future generations might be fine once the technology is more proven.
> The difference being that the rest of the world is not REQUIRED to use dollars.
It's actually rather hard for Japan, China and other countries to not use dollars.
Think about it: Saudi Arabia only sells oil in US dollars. Most of the OPEC sell oil in US dollars.
A while ago, Saddam "broke up" with the USA (they were such good friends before) and had Iraq sell oil in Euros. Then Iraq got "regime changed" and promptly went back to selling oil in US dollars.
The rulers of Saudi Arabia are still considered staunch allies of the USA. The US will support them and forgive them much, even if their country is a hotbed of terrorism and Islamic extremism.
FWIW, Iran started selling oil in Euros and Yen not that long ago, and has recently started a oil bourse to trade oil in other currencies. Maybe the US might help them change their minds.
Yes the rest of the world has an exist strategy. Most of them want to exist:).
BUT inflation aka printing money is a way for the Printer to tax the users of that currency.
It's all part of the plan.
You see the great thing for the USA is the rest of the world uses US dollars to buy and sell stuff like oil, and zillions of other commodities and products. Even amongst themselves. Because of that very many countries end up holding billions or even trillions of US dollars.
So when the US Federal Reserve lends[1] its friends X trillion US dollars ( and they only need to pay back 'later' when convenient), it's actually a way of taxing everyone else.
Now the US citizens should be happy if they get their share of the printed money as well, but if they don't they really should do something about it.
In contrast when Mugabe in Zimbabwe prints money, only the people using Zimbabwe currency are hurt. Which means the rest of the world is mostly unaffected.
People keep saying we're running out of IPv4 addresses. If we can go around keeping IPv4 addresses it would mean we aren't really running out of IPv4 addresses;).
> Problems of IPv6: Screw it, we'll just nat our existing IPv4 addresses.
Big Media might like that a lot. That's not a bug to them but a feature.
ISPs resorting to shoving most people behind NATs is a feature for Big Media, because it breaks P2P.
I know it would break WoW updates and other stuff too, but I'm sure Big Media would consider that an acceptable sacrifice.
It may help produce an Internet that's more like TV or a broadcast medium. The billions of users only being able to get content from a few million servers controlled by those who can afford public IPv4 addresses (which would go up in price).
Big Media might be very friendly with some Big ISPs in the USA right?
So while the IPv6 rollout is likely to eventually happen, it may take quite a long while. Way after the popular "run out of IPv4 addresses" deadlines.
Users would be shoved behind NATs and most of them wouldn't even notice- Fox News, CNN etc would still work for them.
Yeah and a long long time ago in a galaxy far away they obviously didn't have such stuff like OSHA.
Or they'd have railings to stop people from falling into pits and other nasties...
Clearly it's a galaxy where they didn't have warning stickers on lightsabers to tell people "This way to enemy", or "Do not point lightsaber at remaining head".
A DNA match does not establish motive and other important things.
All it shows is "it is very likely that your DNA is here".
Once you add up everything (other evidence, alibi found to be false, etc) else you might have something. But it is certainly not "short of a confession", it is nowhere even close to a confession.
It's certainly very useful to help find out who else to investigate (and who to investigate first:) ).
Same goes for the "writing style" tool. Even if it's easily fooled, it may still be a useful tool.
Even if the tools aren't perfect, the criminals aren't perfect either - they make mistakes, or they never really planned the crime in the first place.
I don't care about the quantity of government. I care about the quality.
Fix the quality and the quantity will take care of itself.
I believe you can't fix the quantity and expect the quality to take care of itself, so to me the endless arguments about quantity just shows how stupid people are.
Voting for politicians just because they want "small" (or "big") government isn't going to help you get better government.
Just say you get a government of just one person, because you think a government of just one bad person reduces the amount of badness. The trouble is that one person could make bad[1] contracts with crappy organisations to do the millions of stuff he/she can't do (or doesn't want to do).
[1] Bad for the people, but good for him/her and his/her cronies.
And the last I checked, corporations in the USA do NOT necessarily have to care about "luxuries" like "Freedom of Speech". Even if the immediate government contractors are required to care, they could always keep subcontracting till the phrase becomes useless.
> I heard somewhere it's equal to the circumference of a circle divided by it's diameter...
Not that it would change much, but it just seems strange to me to use the diameter. To me it would make more sense to have the "magic number" be "the circumference of a circle, divided by its radius".
If they keep calling you and asking you to pay them, it automatically becomes your problem, even if it isn't supposed to be.
I wonder if one could report them for extortion. Especially if they keep it up after you have provided reasonable evidence that you don't owe them money.
Think of pidgin as an exploitable email client. Just because the server by default passes messages from anyone (that's not blacklisted) to the client does not mean it's a server problem. And certainly does not mean the server should be rewritten.
I'm not surprised pidgin has security problems. I stopped using pidgin because it crashes or locks up for stupid reasons. Pidgin is written in C. With C (or C++), "crash bugs" often turn out to be "remote execution of arbitrary code of the attacker's choice" bugs.
> Flickr is a company, not a government. You have no constitutional right of free speech on Flickr.
That's one of the reasons why I find it funny how so many Americans actually believe that having things run by corporations would automagically be better than being run by their Government.
Sure they might still be able to vote with their wallets, but what makes them think they'll do a better job of "wallet voting" than they are already doing with ballot boxes?
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, and good luck to you when your CDs, movies, books, messages, DNA upgrades are no longer your property but Corporate property, and just leased to you with restrictive licenses.
I'm sure you have noticed that the corporations are trying to get property rights and monopolies over everything (hence "intellectual property"). And whether they succeeed is NOTHING to do with big or small government, it's to do with whether they can get away with it or not. They have lots of money to keep trying and trying.
Things will NOT be better if you had a small government stripped of power that has allowed Corporations to have property rights over "everything". A corrupt small and powerless government that lets corrupt big powerful corporations do whatever they want is just going to be as bad.
People who focus on quantity of Government and not quality of Government are stupid.
> "We need to prevent treating the exchange markets like some huge gambling casino."
Actually there's a big difference already.
In casinos you typically gamble with your money and not a pool of money that you took from some pensioners to "invest". Or at least if you get caught doing the latter and lose big time, you go to jail.
In contrast in "high finance" you have companies gambling with other people's money, and during the winning streaks, the gamblers and their bosses pay themselves big bonuses. When there's a big loss, they pay themselves a smaller bonus and then tell the pensioners that the "perfect storm" happened and all the money is lost (or even ask for a bailout). And unless the gamblers have been really stupid (and/or doing it Madoff style), they don't go to jail. Many get new jobs months later to do the same thing all over again - they made their bosses rich, so why wouldn't similar companies hire them?
They're in the business of transferring money from the stupid to the smart.
> Yes, as opposed to the Republican and Democrat presidents and Congress who respect it oh so much.
... ;)
Ah, but why do they have to respect it so much? The last I checked, about 99% of the voters who count (i.e. the ones that vote) vote for either the Republicans or the Democrats.
So the people (who bothered to speak) have spoken and 99% of them have said "keep doing what you're doing". And if the Republicans/Democrats really have been trampling on the Constitution, the people clearly don't care enough, or they are sending the wrong message.
My point still stands, the People can tell the Government - "hey you haven't been respecting the Constitution, we're not going to vote for you this time round". If the People don't do that that's not the problem of not being libertarian enough.
In contrast the citizens can't really tell Corporations "you disrespected our precious Constitution so we're not going to vote for you this time". Since according to you it does NOT apply to them, thus logically if the Corporations end up having more and more power over greater and greater areas in the lives of citizens, it means the Constitution becomes less and less relevant.
And I'm going to laugh at anyone who says "But people could vote with their wallets". Given the way the voters have been voting with the ballot box (which only involves thinking a bit harder once every few years), guess how they are going to be voting with their wallets.
Say you had a US Government run/owned wikipedia/twitter[1]. If they censored stuff, you could go up to them and say "hey this is unconstitutional!". Can't do that for Wikipedia. If in practice that doesn't matter, then in practice the US Constitution doesn't matter.
[1] A Government run/owned Car Company on the other hand
> How could it possibly be? Wikipedia isn't a government entity.
I'm curious - so which items in the US bill of rights stuff don't apply to Corporations or other Organizations?
Imagine what would happen if the Libertarians get their way and there isn't much Government left to respect their precious Constitution in a meaningful way.
"The more wrong way is to start a brand new article about your company. Not only will you have trouble with policy, but imagine if you succeed! Then you'll have a page that you have to constantly monitor against vandalism, and you could lose control of it to some disgruntled former employee who can dig up true unflattering information and keep it in place permanently. Besides, how many people would read the article anyway?"
That's terrible reasoning. Even if you don't start a new article some disgruntled former employee could. At least creating a decent article about your company makes it more likely for a random wikipedia user/admin to revert the page back to your original if there's some clear vandalism- this means less work for you. Whereas if the disgruntled person started the page first, you'd be at a disadvantage - there's nothing to revert to.
For example, a random person might easily revert a page that just says "Assholes" to your original. In contrast if someone creates a page about your company that just says "Assholes", a random person is far less likely to replace it with an entire page of content about your company.
> The fact that the brain will, fairly swiftly, being interpreting electrical pulses on the tongue as visual input blows my insufficiently capacious mind.
It shouldn't if you've played that game where people write letters on your back (or hand or elsewhere) and you are supposed to "read" them by touch alone.
Anyway, add:
1) higher resolution
2) alternate input channels (tongue is rather inconvenient)
3) output (there's tech that allows humans and other animals to control stuff just by thinking)
4) wireless/wired networking.
5) thought macros (plus escape sequences and brain sleep detection, to prevent accidental activation)
6) a portable computer system with a long battery life and a smart program on it.
7) room/area servers
And you'll get augmented reality, virtual telepathy and telekinesis.
Point them to a webserver under your control and have it serve up _your_ "ads". Could be reminders or "random quotes".
Back when I administered a company's firewall I did something like that on April Fool's day. Only a few noticed. No, I didn't get sacked for it (anyway it did save bandwidth).
I suppose most people back then didn't really surf the web.
For long weekends how about recreational space stations? With various stuff like small parks, swimming pools, flying areas (wings available for rent), and fun "low/intermediate G" environments.
Going to the moon or earth every long weekend would just be too expensive for many.
Build a good enough recreational space station and maybe tourists from the Earth would pay lots of money to visit it.
Sure.
But the US Gov and banks can and do borrow from the US Federal Reserve. This can cause inflation (and thus the "taxation effect" I was talking about).
The US people can still experience a net benefit if the US Gov pumps enough of that money to them (directly or to projects that benefit the people).
But they should be careful if certain things happen like: the US borrows money from China etc, then lends a lot of money to an undisclosed bunch.
That benefits that undisclosed bunch. Are that undisclosed bunch "The People of the United States"?
When I last checked the Federal Reserve refused to say who they lent billions or even trillions to.
Bloomberg News have asked http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=apx7XNLnZZlc
And so has Alan Grayson.
Well it's no longer rated funny :).
Maybe it's because most US people don't know that Iraq was considered an ally (or at least a useful tool) of the USA before Iraq invaded Kuwait.
The USA was amongst the many countries supplying Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war.
http://www.unobserver.com/index.php?pagina=layout5.php&id=815&blz=1
After the Iran-Iraq war was over, Saddam even spoke to the US ambassador and complained about Kuwait.
And the US ambassador (April Glaspie) said: "I think I understand this. I have lived here for years. I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.
I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 60's. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly. With regard to all of this, can I ask you to see how the issue appears to us? "
http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/glaspie.html
After that discussion, how was Saddam to know that the USA would be against them in that war? Don't forget the US actually supported them in their war against Iran.
So the Iraq-Kuwait war began, and then the USA came and smacked Iraq.
And this is how the coins go round, out of your pockets and into certain people's pockets :).
Actually what's possible now already is virtual telepathy and telekinesis.
We already have humans and other primates controlling devices with just thought alone. We also have the blind seeing (just not so well), so that proves that the brain can adapt and add "input ports" (google for seeing tongue).
So just implant a brain-interface input/output interface, connect it to a computer that recognizes thought macros, and connect that computer to wireless network interfaces and other I/O devices ( cameras, microphones etc). And voila, virtual telepathy and telekinesis. You can control stuff in a room that supports it, you can instantaneously think of talking to a friend and do it, or think of sending what you see to your friend and do it.
Amongst the problems are safety, reliability, cost and of course acceptance - but kids nowadays don't seem to have any problems implanting nonfunctional crap into their bodies, so future generations might be fine once the technology is more proven.
> The difference being that the rest of the world is not REQUIRED to use dollars.
:).
It's actually rather hard for Japan, China and other countries to not use dollars.
Think about it: Saudi Arabia only sells oil in US dollars. Most of the OPEC sell oil in US dollars.
A while ago, Saddam "broke up" with the USA (they were such good friends before) and had Iraq sell oil in Euros. Then Iraq got "regime changed" and promptly went back to selling oil in US dollars.
The rulers of Saudi Arabia are still considered staunch allies of the USA. The US will support them and forgive them much, even if their country is a hotbed of terrorism and Islamic extremism.
FWIW, Iran started selling oil in Euros and Yen not that long ago, and has recently started a oil bourse to trade oil in other currencies. Maybe the US might help them change their minds.
Yes the rest of the world has an exist strategy. Most of them want to exist
BUT inflation aka printing money is a way for the Printer to tax the users of that currency.
It's all part of the plan.
You see the great thing for the USA is the rest of the world uses US dollars to buy and sell stuff like oil, and zillions of other commodities and products. Even amongst themselves. Because of that very many countries end up holding billions or even trillions of US dollars.
So when the US Federal Reserve lends[1] its friends X trillion US dollars ( and they only need to pay back 'later' when convenient), it's actually a way of taxing everyone else.
Now the US citizens should be happy if they get their share of the printed money as well, but if they don't they really should do something about it.
In contrast when Mugabe in Zimbabwe prints money, only the people using Zimbabwe currency are hurt. Which means the rest of the world is mostly unaffected.
[1] Or allegedly "lose track" of it :).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXlxBeAvsB8
http://www.graysonforcongress.com/newsitem.asp?NewsId=90
http://www.graysonforcongress.com/newsitem.asp?NewsId=91
My guess is the Xbox support/warranty people have been working their butts off.
:).
Or it might explain why people keep voting for the same crappy politicians over and over again
I only find one of the statements in the article though.
Maybe the the article changed?
> Why wouldn't you keep both, out of curiosity?
;).
People keep saying we're running out of IPv4 addresses. If we can go around keeping IPv4 addresses it would mean we aren't really running out of IPv4 addresses
> Problems of IPv6: Screw it, we'll just nat our existing IPv4 addresses.
Big Media might like that a lot. That's not a bug to them but a feature.
ISPs resorting to shoving most people behind NATs is a feature for Big Media, because it breaks P2P.
I know it would break WoW updates and other stuff too, but I'm sure Big Media would consider that an acceptable sacrifice.
It may help produce an Internet that's more like TV or a broadcast medium. The billions of users only being able to get content from a few million servers controlled by those who can afford public IPv4 addresses (which would go up in price).
Big Media might be very friendly with some Big ISPs in the USA right?
So while the IPv6 rollout is likely to eventually happen, it may take quite a long while. Way after the popular "run out of IPv4 addresses" deadlines.
Users would be shoved behind NATs and most of them wouldn't even notice- Fox News, CNN etc would still work for them.
Yeah and a long long time ago in a galaxy far away they obviously didn't have such stuff like OSHA.
Or they'd have railings to stop people from falling into pits and other nasties...
Clearly it's a galaxy where they didn't have warning stickers on lightsabers to tell people "This way to enemy", or "Do not point lightsaber at remaining head".
But still...
A DNA match does not establish motive and other important things.
:) ).
All it shows is "it is very likely that your DNA is here".
Once you add up everything (other evidence, alibi found to be false, etc) else you might have something. But it is certainly not "short of a confession", it is nowhere even close to a confession.
It's certainly very useful to help find out who else to investigate (and who to investigate first
Same goes for the "writing style" tool. Even if it's easily fooled, it may still be a useful tool.
Even if the tools aren't perfect, the criminals aren't perfect either - they make mistakes, or they never really planned the crime in the first place.
I don't care about the quantity of government. I care about the quality.
Fix the quality and the quantity will take care of itself.
I believe you can't fix the quantity and expect the quality to take care of itself, so to me the endless arguments about quantity just shows how stupid people are.
Voting for politicians just because they want "small" (or "big") government isn't going to help you get better government.
Just say you get a government of just one person, because you think a government of just one bad person reduces the amount of badness. The trouble is that one person could make bad[1] contracts with crappy organisations to do the millions of stuff he/she can't do (or doesn't want to do).
[1] Bad for the people, but good for him/her and his/her cronies.
And the last I checked, corporations in the USA do NOT necessarily have to care about "luxuries" like "Freedom of Speech". Even if the immediate government contractors are required to care, they could always keep subcontracting till the phrase becomes useless.
That said, apparently it's easier to calculate an arbitrary digit of pi if you use binary or hexadecimal.
See: http://www.lbl.gov/wonder/bailey-2.html
> I heard somewhere it's equal to the circumference of a circle divided by it's diameter...
Not that it would change much, but it just seems strange to me to use the diameter. To me it would make more sense to have the "magic number" be "the circumference of a circle, divided by its radius".
If they keep calling you and asking you to pay them, it automatically becomes your problem, even if it isn't supposed to be.
I wonder if one could report them for extortion. Especially if they keep it up after you have provided reasonable evidence that you don't owe them money.
But that's not a server side problem.
Think of pidgin as an exploitable email client. Just because the server by default passes messages from anyone (that's not blacklisted) to the client does not mean it's a server problem. And certainly does not mean the server should be rewritten.
I'm not surprised pidgin has security problems. I stopped using pidgin because it crashes or locks up for stupid reasons. Pidgin is written in C. With C (or C++), "crash bugs" often turn out to be "remote execution of arbitrary code of the attacker's choice" bugs.
> Flickr is a company, not a government. You have no constitutional right of free speech on Flickr.
That's one of the reasons why I find it funny how so many Americans actually believe that having things run by corporations would automagically be better than being run by their Government.
Sure they might still be able to vote with their wallets, but what makes them think they'll do a better job of "wallet voting" than they are already doing with ballot boxes?