The challenger though [sic] it was a sure thing, but it was still a gamble.
RTFA. "Obviously, I would like you to send me the $5000 as promised, but I never really expected you to. I'm surprised we went as far as we did. I thought you were going to pull out the morning after the original emails after realising your mistake. You can keep the $100."
You telling AOL how they should run their system is analogous to me telling you how you should run your home LAN.
What about me? Since I'm one of the owners of AOL, do I have a right to tell them that they're being stupid baby idiots? Do I have a right to say that every member who stops using the AIM protocol affects five people who pay $21.95/month for AOL and have one less person to talk to? Do I have a right to say that this idiocy *will* cause people to stop using the AIM protocol, and that *will* cause people to stop using AOL?
I've seen the charts. AIM is the only major IM client whose numbers are going down. MSN Messenger, Yahoo, ICQ are all going up. Yes, I do have a right to tell AOL that they're being stupid. But since I also own Yahoo and Microsoft, and much more Microsoft than AOL and Yahoo combined, I won't tell them anything. At least Microsoft is smart enough to open up the things that aren't going to make money directly anyway. As for Yahoo, well, they seem to have trouble figuring out how to make money in the first place, at least for the time being.
A corporation that does not maximize profit because of moral qualms can be sued by their shareholders.
Two points: 1) A corporation can't be sued by it's shareholders due to breach of fiduciary responsibility, the CEO, or President, or whoever made the decision would be sued. 2) As long as the company publicizes their moral behavior, it is reasonably in the best interests of the company. A CEO can rationalize that moral behavior leads to goodwill which increases the companies profits. This would be perfectly accepted in a court of law.
The proper response to what AOL is doing is to stop using their stupid server. When your non-technical friends ask you why, tell them, then teach them how to switch to a service with an open protocol, such as MSN Messenger. Have them call up AOL and complain. Then buy lots of shares of AOL and vote your shares against the current management who makes such stupid decisions. (Disclaimer: I own lots of shares of AOL, and vote every one against the current management who makes such stupid decisions.)
As for the morality of the situation, I don't believe that breaking copyright law is immoral. So if there's a way to get around copyright law in a legal fashion, I say go for it. If AOL wants to make money off every person who uses Oscar, let them charge for it. Otherwise, they should chalk it up as a loss of a few million to goodwill. AOL made almost 2 billion dollars in profit in the last 12 months. I can't imagine opening up Oscar as affecting their bottom line very much. My own personal belief is that it would increase it.
Even if planes, trains, and buses all required you to identify yourself (of these only planes do), you still could drive. For the few times a year you take a plane, the government knows about it. Big fucking deal. I don't see the harm that is done. I really don't. Maybe you could enlighten me on it.
One time credit cards will be around by the time everyone refuses to accept cash. They already are, to some extent. You pay cash, and you get a credit card number, to spend that cash. They could easily be put in vending machines, and now you're going to have to be a pretty damn important person for the government to bother.
I've heard of cases of identity theft, but in all cases the only bad thing which happened was it appeared on the person's credit report. Maybe that matters to some, but I don't give a shit. Even if I can't get credit, I tend not to anyway, and my friends will be happy to loan me money, since I have loaned them money many times in the past. For any credit card company or other credit agency who refuses to loan me money, it's their loss.
I don't have very much "stuff" to steal, so I'd be a pretty bad target for burglary. In fact, my biggest assets are my knowledge and my friends, both of which are impossible to steal from me (in the sense that I lose something and the other person gains it). Short of being killed or locked up, I don't have all that much to worry about.
Technology can't be uninvented. We're going to have to live with it. The most important thing to do, in my opinion, is get rid of the selectively enforced laws, such as drug laws, many intellectual property laws, many traffic laws, and most of the tax laws (simplify it). These laws are nothing more than a way for the government to selectively prosecute those which it disagrees with. Once we've decriminalized and legalized the things which 99+% of the country does, the only people who have to fear the government will be those committing real crime.
Privacy *is* important. All other things being equal, I'll choose the more private alternative. But the government already knows where I live. They know where I work. And anyone who wants to burglarize my house need only check to see if my car is in the driveway, they don't need to steal records from Amtrak. Any company who relies merely on easily stolen information such as Social Security numbers to lend out money will quickly go out of business. I sure won't have to pay for it.
For anyone who values their privacy more, take a car, take a different train, pay cash, don't make that trip, get a fake ID, the possibilities are endless. When these possibilities go away, then you can complain. But don't whine about your information being given away when you made no effort whatsoever to not give it away, or to at least have the reciever promise to keep it private. That's stupid.
I don't believe in taking societal regulation out of the picture. I merely favor allowing rational adults to make adult decisions. One of these decisions involves consuming drugs which may cause long-term detrimental side effects. The other involves giving away personal information which may likewise cause long-term detrimental side effects.
Every transaction I make is not being monitored. In fact, even before this article came out I avoided disclosing this information where possible. Last time I used Amtrak, which admittedly was over a year ago, cash was still accepted, and I used it.
Of course, I don't have any illusions of privacy. Back a couple years ago I ran a free web hosting service which was at one point used by people sending harrassing mail through the USPS. The FBI got involved and contacted me to ask for information about this person. They told me I was particularly difficult to locate, but the fact of the matter is they found me. I didn't have any information to give them, since I didn't collect any information, for this precise reason. Since then I've pretty much given up on my privacy, at least as far as the federal government is concerned. What do I care if they know where I've gone on Amtrak, anyway?
So far we have been saved by the Alan Greenspan approach to IP address shortage. Send the economy into a tailspin, put all the "dot coms" out of business, and watch the IP addresses come rolling in.
What she should have pointed out was that other people would also pick 1,2,3,4,5,6, so even if she did win, she would have to split the jackpot with (probably many) other people.:)
First of all stopping crime is not the only factor to be considered. Criminal enforcement must be balanced against personal liberties, total cost and welfare of the nation as a whole.
True personal liberty would allow a corporation to sell any information to any entity at any price. You gave Amtrak the information, you didn't make Amtrak agree not to sell it, the information is now Amtrak's to do as they please with it. You should assume any information you provide a company is publicly available, unless that company signs an agreement otherwise. Even then you probably should consider the possibility that they might break that agreement.
The problem is that drugs are illegal. Racial profiling would approach becoming a non-issue if we stuck to fighting real crime. It's never going to go away completely, our predjudices are what allow us to make rational decisions. Personally I'd recommend that the police be sued for harrassment for falsely detaining an innocent person. That would quickly limit their harrassment to cases where they actually believe there is a crime being committed. Of course, it might also increase the amount of planting of evidence and framing that is done. Immediate suspension with pay until a trial then discharge and jail time if convicted of planting evidence is the only thing you can do about that problem.
Well, all I'm saying is that complaining about it on slashdot isn't going to accomplish anything. If there really is a demand, start your own station, using satellite transmissions, or the internet. You'll make a bundle, and you can even use the money to lobby congress to change the law, if you want.
Personally, I don't give a shit. My TV viewing consists of about an hour or two a week. The word "fuck" isn't going to redeem the cesspool of content which is currently being shown.
This isn't Hitler-run Germany. But if it is, feel free to leave and go to another country. No one is denying free speech. They are merely regulating a limited quantity common good (airwaves). The alternative is to sell the airwaves to the highest bidder. Personally I'd rather have an elected congress as "dictator" than Steve Case and AOL. You can say "fuck" all you want, you just can't take up valuable airwaves from people with speech which is more in demand by the public. No one's forcing you to watch the crap. No one's stopping you from starting your own television station, on cable or on the internet. This isn't totalitarianism, it's the majority just not liking the same content as you.
Ever wondered why material like this is always on and broadcasters keep wanting to show it? Because it sells and gets viewers. If it didn't sell at all it wouldn't be on TV at all. The best way you can stop this stuff is to just boycott those stations that brodcast this material.
Good argument, but lets look at the other end of it. The airwaves are a public property. They have to be regulated. The government must be involved in this. By using this public property, you are forced to follow the government's rules, which as long as they are applied consistently so as to avoid censorship, seems like a reasonable requirement to me.
But on to your argument: the best way to stop this censorship is to refuse to watch or listen to programs which cater to it. Watch cable. Watch PBS (they broadcast "fuck" regularly). The fact of the matter is that most people in the US want censorship, so if you plan to live here, you should get used to that fact. The free market already does decide what is and isn't on TV. Most people just happen to choose commercial filled, fake laugh track, censored nonsense.
I thought Einstein was the one who proved we weren't the center of the universe (and that in fact there was no center of the universe) by disproving the etheral field.
Unless you're talking about the geometric center, or the center of gravity of the universe, in which case, we might be either one of those, or both.
We wish to thank the many Firewall vendors who have supported our work to re-enable the innovation that made the Internet great, without giving up the cellophane fig leaf of security that a Firewall provides.
Hmm, I think maybe that is the point. That companies deploying firewalls should just give up on trying to protect against such things?
C'mon people, Linux as a desktop machine is sucky enough. Let's focus all our desktop energies on that, and make FreeBSD the best damn server out there. If only they had compatible licenses, maybe this would have already happened. The right tool for the right situation. FreeBSD for your server, Windows 2000 for your desktop, Linux for your embedded device?
My suggestion is that you don't try to prevent the exclusion at all. Life sucks. That isn't going to change. People are going to disagree, people are going argue, people are going to hate each other. This is life. Children need to be taught how to get along with people they don't like. Sometimes that requires them to "improve", and other times it merely requires accepting that there are some people in the world you're just not going to get along with. Ultimately it's the child's own decision how much s/he wants to change, and how much s/he just wants to accept the exclusion. As long as the problem doesn't become a physical one, the school should only be there to listen and to offer its wisdom and suggestions.
In my middle and high school there was an automatic suspension for both members of a fight (assuming both members threw a punch). I quickly learned after my first fight (of which I threw punches only to defend myself) how not to get into a fight in the first place. As for not getting into verbal fights, that took me through college and my first years of employment to learn, largely because no one ever taught me how to be assertive. Also because I was under the mistaken assumption that I was being excluded because of something about me, not because I was a punk-ass kid.
There's a prayer of sorts that is said at the end of many Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." I think this is very appropriate for the excluded children in today's society.
It's hard to make generalizations. Each child has different problems. But in my experience, there are no kids who were completely excluded from everyone who don't bring it upon themselves. Sure, there were those who weren't part of the "cool" crowd, but except for the bitter ones who got along with no one, they still had plenty of friends and acquantainces. Saving the bitter ones from the pain they're experiencing will only produce bitter adults who only have more access to guns and explosives.
I'm not suggesting forced "improvement" for these excluded children. That's up to the student and (arguably at this age) his/her parents. Each person needs to find his/her own balance between being true to oneself, and having everyone love you. In some cases the two are mutually exclusive. My own personal decision is to find a balance between the two. I think many of these students want to improve themselves, and just don't know how.
The teasing isn't going to stop, and stricter enforcement of rules against teasing isn't going to help anything. It's these zero-tolerance policies that cause the problems to escalate. What could have ended in a student's poetry expressing how he hates the world is instead suppressed. I saw it happening in my High School 6 years ago. From what I hear it has only gotten worse since. Every year someone writes a poem for the school's literary magazine expressing something taboo. It's rarely an actual threat, which I can understand being punished, but it's something about hating the world, or uses harsh language, or some other similar topic. Invariably, the student gets expelled, and probably later beat up for being "weird". Then some stupid psychiatrist comes and when it comes out that the student has suicidal thoughts (c'mon, *most* everyone has suicidal thoughts at some point during their adolescence), but once it comes out, the student is not permitted to return to school until undergoing a psychiatric evaluation. His/Her parents find out about all this, and beat or punish or sexually abuse or whatever it is they do to the child even more now, and the problem of the child's self-esteem only gets worse and worse.
We have become a perfectionist society. Any hint that a person has thoughts which are outside the norm (let alone actually morally wrong) and that person is immediately cast away from society. The only way to deal with your imperfections in today's society is to hide them, and hiding your rage is only going to make you eventually explode.
I'm not defending any of the young murderers at those High Schools. Ultimately, it is our own responsibility to learn to deal with our rage. But like most any other problem in our society, the only ultimate way to deal with it is through education. No one should be punished for his or her feelings, or for expressing those feelings through words. Rather, the person should be taught how to deal with those feelings in a positive or at least neutral manner, before they become actions which must be punished.
If we're talking about HAAT (height above average terrain), wouldn't a ship in the middle of the atlantic ocean qualify as tallest free-standing structure?
I don't know the programmer's motivations, and that's one of the reasons why I won't make the donation. For all I know, the programmer is going to use the donation to hire a hit-man to kill someone. On a less drastic note, maybe he is going to use the donation to buy his daughter pretty shoes. I'd rather buy my own daughter pretty shoes. Maybe he is going to donate the money to the Salvation Army. I'd rather donate the money to Goodwill.
If the programmer did it that way so that people who are in third world countries can use it without cost, I suggest the programmer state that in his/her license. Charge for the software and have a form which the person can fill out to request a free version due to hardship. You have to be careful with that though, price discrimination is illegal under anti-trade laws. It would likely be legal in this case, if done properly.
I don't mean to get self-righteous about it. I don't have any problems with a programmer who asks for donations. What I have a problem with is the dishonesty, and frankly, the self-righteousness of the programmer who expects me to voluntarily donate to his cause which I know nothing about. I find the dishonesty of not charging for software and expecting payment just as bad as the dishonesty of charging for software and not expecting payment, such as what Netscape did with their shareware license of the original product.
Finally, the fact of the matter is that donation systems don't work. If 75% of the people can afford to pay, and 0.1% of the people actually do, those 1% are paying 75 times as much as they would need to in a market driven system. I'll gladly pay $1/year for slashdot if that's required, but I'm not about to pay $750/year for myself and 749 others. This again is a key distinction from tipping at a resturant. Virtually everyone tips at a resturant, so the expected tip amount is very close to what the market would bear anyway. It also serves a useful purpose, as waiters/waitresses tend to perform better service to recieve better tips. With programming, it's a single service performed to all people simultaneously. You could argue that those people should still each pay a different price, but it's a different argument from the resturant situation (it's also illegal under anti-trade laws).
If that's leaching, then fine, I'm a leach. It certainly is selfish. I don't claim to be unselfish, in the sense that I'll give my excess wealth to causes which *I* believe in, not causes which *you* believe in. We each have a limited amount of time and resources. I believe that we should devote that time and those resources to things that we believe in, not to random people who happen to be good at programming.
No, resturants are completely different. Tips are expected. No one really claims that they're optional. The waiter/waitress only hides the fact that tipping is essentially mandatory to the extent that the resturant owner requires the person to. I don't really agree with the whole system, and if I ever ran a resturant I would include the tip in with the bill, but that is nothing like the situation with the programmer. The waiter/waitress has no choice in the matter but to rely on tipping. The programmer on the other hand has a definate choice. Be honest, and charge for the program if you *expect* payment.
I agree that not all programmers live in silicon valley, but they do all have more money than they *need*. And in the situation I was referring to, the programmer was able to afford a computer, an internet connection, and the time to write a program without any guarantee of payment. I'll make the not-so-bold-in-my-opinion statement that anyone who does that is not starving to death. In case I'm wrong, I'd direct that person to http://www.mcdonalds.com/corporate/careers/contact s/index.html
I understand if the programmer is saying "you don't have to pay if you can't afford it." In a situation like that, I'd probably pay (unless someone else was making an equivalent product for a lower price), that's fair. But if the programmer is saying payment is optional, I'm only going to donate my money if it's to a non-profit organization with a track record of using the money in a way which I support. Optional means optional, and if you tell me I don't have to pay, you have no right to get angry if I don't. There's a term for that, it's called passive-aggressive.
It seems to me an even more dismal view of human nature that anyone would give a donation to a programmer living in silicon valley when there are children starving to death in third world countries. Sorry, if my choice is to voluntarily give a C programmer an extra 500 megs in his/her hard drive or to give a starving child an extra day of life on this planet, I'll give to the starving child.
"In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License."
The 15 dollar question being: is an ISO aggregation, or is it a derivitive work? I'd probably bet on the side of aggregation.
What's wrong with monitoring the "free speech"? If it's posted on a public server, it's by definition public, anyone can monitor it.
Metallica is free to do whatever it pleases. You are free to not listen to their music if you don't want to follow their rules. If you think you have a better system, follow RMS's lead. Implement your better system, and use it.
Err, no, that is exactly why I leave myself the 50% buffer... If I really thought my portfolio was going to go down more than 50%, I would adjust accordingly. In reality I'd be out much sooner than that. I'm not sure exactly what I did learn in school, but whatever it was that taught me to get the hell out of the internet stocks when they started to come crashing down couldn't have been that bad. It's the only reason I have any money left to "buy low" now. Even in a bad economy and terrible market, there are always good stocks to buy. Boeing has been my latest, as a hedge against the idiot we just elected, but I just got out of them a couple weeks ago.
Except that this is the problem that people have complained about the centralized Napster model. There has to be at minimum a list of napster servers to connect to.
That's why you don't host the Napster servers on Sealand, you host the dynamic list of napster server ip addresses on Sealand. When one gets shut down, you start up a new one. Put sealand at the top of the pyramid, tree out from there. Keep everything except sealand consumer based and not-for-profit and there's no way in hell to shut it down without shutting down sealand. P2P always needs *some* centralization to work, but very little is actually necessary.
Just to clarify, these suggestions are for a legally run napster serving only constituionally protected free speech, not metallica mp3s.
Slashdot Mirror
The challenger though [sic] it was a sure thing, but it was still a gamble.
RTFA. "Obviously, I would like you to send me the $5000 as promised, but I never really expected you to. I'm surprised we went as far as we did. I thought you were going to pull out the morning after the original emails after realising your mistake. You can keep the $100."
You telling AOL how they should run their system is analogous to me telling you how you should run your home LAN.
What about me? Since I'm one of the owners of AOL, do I have a right to tell them that they're being stupid baby idiots? Do I have a right to say that every member who stops using the AIM protocol affects five people who pay $21.95/month for AOL and have one less person to talk to? Do I have a right to say that this idiocy *will* cause people to stop using the AIM protocol, and that *will* cause people to stop using AOL?
I've seen the charts. AIM is the only major IM client whose numbers are going down. MSN Messenger, Yahoo, ICQ are all going up. Yes, I do have a right to tell AOL that they're being stupid. But since I also own Yahoo and Microsoft, and much more Microsoft than AOL and Yahoo combined, I won't tell them anything. At least Microsoft is smart enough to open up the things that aren't going to make money directly anyway. As for Yahoo, well, they seem to have trouble figuring out how to make money in the first place, at least for the time being.
A corporation that does not maximize profit because of moral qualms can be sued by their shareholders.
Two points: 1) A corporation can't be sued by it's shareholders due to breach of fiduciary responsibility, the CEO, or President, or whoever made the decision would be sued. 2) As long as the company publicizes their moral behavior, it is reasonably in the best interests of the company. A CEO can rationalize that moral behavior leads to goodwill which increases the companies profits. This would be perfectly accepted in a court of law.
The proper response to what AOL is doing is to stop using their stupid server. When your non-technical friends ask you why, tell them, then teach them how to switch to a service with an open protocol, such as MSN Messenger. Have them call up AOL and complain. Then buy lots of shares of AOL and vote your shares against the current management who makes such stupid decisions. (Disclaimer: I own lots of shares of AOL, and vote every one against the current management who makes such stupid decisions.)
As for the morality of the situation, I don't believe that breaking copyright law is immoral. So if there's a way to get around copyright law in a legal fashion, I say go for it. If AOL wants to make money off every person who uses Oscar, let them charge for it. Otherwise, they should chalk it up as a loss of a few million to goodwill. AOL made almost 2 billion dollars in profit in the last 12 months. I can't imagine opening up Oscar as affecting their bottom line very much. My own personal belief is that it would increase it.
Even if planes, trains, and buses all required you to identify yourself (of these only planes do), you still could drive. For the few times a year you take a plane, the government knows about it. Big fucking deal. I don't see the harm that is done. I really don't. Maybe you could enlighten me on it.
One time credit cards will be around by the time everyone refuses to accept cash. They already are, to some extent. You pay cash, and you get a credit card number, to spend that cash. They could easily be put in vending machines, and now you're going to have to be a pretty damn important person for the government to bother.
I've heard of cases of identity theft, but in all cases the only bad thing which happened was it appeared on the person's credit report. Maybe that matters to some, but I don't give a shit. Even if I can't get credit, I tend not to anyway, and my friends will be happy to loan me money, since I have loaned them money many times in the past. For any credit card company or other credit agency who refuses to loan me money, it's their loss.
I don't have very much "stuff" to steal, so I'd be a pretty bad target for burglary. In fact, my biggest assets are my knowledge and my friends, both of which are impossible to steal from me (in the sense that I lose something and the other person gains it). Short of being killed or locked up, I don't have all that much to worry about.
Technology can't be uninvented. We're going to have to live with it. The most important thing to do, in my opinion, is get rid of the selectively enforced laws, such as drug laws, many intellectual property laws, many traffic laws, and most of the tax laws (simplify it). These laws are nothing more than a way for the government to selectively prosecute those which it disagrees with. Once we've decriminalized and legalized the things which 99+% of the country does, the only people who have to fear the government will be those committing real crime.
Privacy *is* important. All other things being equal, I'll choose the more private alternative. But the government already knows where I live. They know where I work. And anyone who wants to burglarize my house need only check to see if my car is in the driveway, they don't need to steal records from Amtrak. Any company who relies merely on easily stolen information such as Social Security numbers to lend out money will quickly go out of business. I sure won't have to pay for it.
For anyone who values their privacy more, take a car, take a different train, pay cash, don't make that trip, get a fake ID, the possibilities are endless. When these possibilities go away, then you can complain. But don't whine about your information being given away when you made no effort whatsoever to not give it away, or to at least have the reciever promise to keep it private. That's stupid.
I don't believe in taking societal regulation out of the picture. I merely favor allowing rational adults to make adult decisions. One of these decisions involves consuming drugs which may cause long-term detrimental side effects. The other involves giving away personal information which may likewise cause long-term detrimental side effects.
Every transaction I make is not being monitored. In fact, even before this article came out I avoided disclosing this information where possible. Last time I used Amtrak, which admittedly was over a year ago, cash was still accepted, and I used it.
Of course, I don't have any illusions of privacy. Back a couple years ago I ran a free web hosting service which was at one point used by people sending harrassing mail through the USPS. The FBI got involved and contacted me to ask for information about this person. They told me I was particularly difficult to locate, but the fact of the matter is they found me. I didn't have any information to give them, since I didn't collect any information, for this precise reason. Since then I've pretty much given up on my privacy, at least as far as the federal government is concerned. What do I care if they know where I've gone on Amtrak, anyway?
So far we have been saved by the Alan Greenspan approach to IP address shortage. Send the economy into a tailspin, put all the "dot coms" out of business, and watch the IP addresses come rolling in.
What she should have pointed out was that other people would also pick 1,2,3,4,5,6, so even if she did win, she would have to split the jackpot with (probably many) other people. :)
First of all stopping crime is not the only factor to be considered. Criminal enforcement must be balanced against personal liberties, total cost and welfare of the nation as a whole.
True personal liberty would allow a corporation to sell any information to any entity at any price. You gave Amtrak the information, you didn't make Amtrak agree not to sell it, the information is now Amtrak's to do as they please with it. You should assume any information you provide a company is publicly available, unless that company signs an agreement otherwise. Even then you probably should consider the possibility that they might break that agreement.
The problem is that drugs are illegal. Racial profiling would approach becoming a non-issue if we stuck to fighting real crime. It's never going to go away completely, our predjudices are what allow us to make rational decisions. Personally I'd recommend that the police be sued for harrassment for falsely detaining an innocent person. That would quickly limit their harrassment to cases where they actually believe there is a crime being committed. Of course, it might also increase the amount of planting of evidence and framing that is done. Immediate suspension with pay until a trial then discharge and jail time if convicted of planting evidence is the only thing you can do about that problem.
Well, all I'm saying is that complaining about it on slashdot isn't going to accomplish anything. If there really is a demand, start your own station, using satellite transmissions, or the internet. You'll make a bundle, and you can even use the money to lobby congress to change the law, if you want.
Personally, I don't give a shit. My TV viewing consists of about an hour or two a week. The word "fuck" isn't going to redeem the cesspool of content which is currently being shown.
This isn't Hitler-run Germany. But if it is, feel free to leave and go to another country. No one is denying free speech. They are merely regulating a limited quantity common good (airwaves). The alternative is to sell the airwaves to the highest bidder. Personally I'd rather have an elected congress as "dictator" than Steve Case and AOL. You can say "fuck" all you want, you just can't take up valuable airwaves from people with speech which is more in demand by the public. No one's forcing you to watch the crap. No one's stopping you from starting your own television station, on cable or on the internet. This isn't totalitarianism, it's the majority just not liking the same content as you.
Ever wondered why material like this is always on and broadcasters keep wanting to show it? Because it sells and gets viewers. If it didn't sell at all it wouldn't be on TV at all. The best way you can stop this stuff is to just boycott those stations that brodcast this material.
Good argument, but lets look at the other end of it. The airwaves are a public property. They have to be regulated. The government must be involved in this. By using this public property, you are forced to follow the government's rules, which as long as they are applied consistently so as to avoid censorship, seems like a reasonable requirement to me.
But on to your argument: the best way to stop this censorship is to refuse to watch or listen to programs which cater to it. Watch cable. Watch PBS (they broadcast "fuck" regularly). The fact of the matter is that most people in the US want censorship, so if you plan to live here, you should get used to that fact. The free market already does decide what is and isn't on TV. Most people just happen to choose commercial filled, fake laugh track, censored nonsense.
I thought Einstein was the one who proved we weren't the center of the universe (and that in fact there was no center of the universe) by disproving the etheral field.
Unless you're talking about the geometric center, or the center of gravity of the universe, in which case, we might be either one of those, or both.
We wish to thank the many Firewall vendors who have supported our work to re-enable the innovation that made the Internet great, without giving up the cellophane fig leaf of security that a Firewall provides.
Hmm, I think maybe that is the point. That companies deploying firewalls should just give up on trying to protect against such things?C'mon people, Linux as a desktop machine is sucky enough. Let's focus all our desktop energies on that, and make FreeBSD the best damn server out there. If only they had compatible licenses, maybe this would have already happened. The right tool for the right situation. FreeBSD for your server, Windows 2000 for your desktop, Linux for your embedded device?
My suggestion is that you don't try to prevent the exclusion at all. Life sucks. That isn't going to change. People are going to disagree, people are going argue, people are going to hate each other. This is life. Children need to be taught how to get along with people they don't like. Sometimes that requires them to "improve", and other times it merely requires accepting that there are some people in the world you're just not going to get along with. Ultimately it's the child's own decision how much s/he wants to change, and how much s/he just wants to accept the exclusion. As long as the problem doesn't become a physical one, the school should only be there to listen and to offer its wisdom and suggestions.
In my middle and high school there was an automatic suspension for both members of a fight (assuming both members threw a punch). I quickly learned after my first fight (of which I threw punches only to defend myself) how not to get into a fight in the first place. As for not getting into verbal fights, that took me through college and my first years of employment to learn, largely because no one ever taught me how to be assertive. Also because I was under the mistaken assumption that I was being excluded because of something about me, not because I was a punk-ass kid.
There's a prayer of sorts that is said at the end of many Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." I think this is very appropriate for the excluded children in today's society.
It's hard to make generalizations. Each child has different problems. But in my experience, there are no kids who were completely excluded from everyone who don't bring it upon themselves. Sure, there were those who weren't part of the "cool" crowd, but except for the bitter ones who got along with no one, they still had plenty of friends and acquantainces. Saving the bitter ones from the pain they're experiencing will only produce bitter adults who only have more access to guns and explosives.
I'm not suggesting forced "improvement" for these excluded children. That's up to the student and (arguably at this age) his/her parents. Each person needs to find his/her own balance between being true to oneself, and having everyone love you. In some cases the two are mutually exclusive. My own personal decision is to find a balance between the two. I think many of these students want to improve themselves, and just don't know how.
The teasing isn't going to stop, and stricter enforcement of rules against teasing isn't going to help anything. It's these zero-tolerance policies that cause the problems to escalate. What could have ended in a student's poetry expressing how he hates the world is instead suppressed. I saw it happening in my High School 6 years ago. From what I hear it has only gotten worse since. Every year someone writes a poem for the school's literary magazine expressing something taboo. It's rarely an actual threat, which I can understand being punished, but it's something about hating the world, or uses harsh language, or some other similar topic. Invariably, the student gets expelled, and probably later beat up for being "weird". Then some stupid psychiatrist comes and when it comes out that the student has suicidal thoughts (c'mon, *most* everyone has suicidal thoughts at some point during their adolescence), but once it comes out, the student is not permitted to return to school until undergoing a psychiatric evaluation. His/Her parents find out about all this, and beat or punish or sexually abuse or whatever it is they do to the child even more now, and the problem of the child's self-esteem only gets worse and worse.
We have become a perfectionist society. Any hint that a person has thoughts which are outside the norm (let alone actually morally wrong) and that person is immediately cast away from society. The only way to deal with your imperfections in today's society is to hide them, and hiding your rage is only going to make you eventually explode.
I'm not defending any of the young murderers at those High Schools. Ultimately, it is our own responsibility to learn to deal with our rage. But like most any other problem in our society, the only ultimate way to deal with it is through education. No one should be punished for his or her feelings, or for expressing those feelings through words. Rather, the person should be taught how to deal with those feelings in a positive or at least neutral manner, before they become actions which must be punished.
If we're talking about HAAT (height above average terrain), wouldn't a ship in the middle of the atlantic ocean qualify as tallest free-standing structure?
I don't know the programmer's motivations, and that's one of the reasons why I won't make the donation. For all I know, the programmer is going to use the donation to hire a hit-man to kill someone. On a less drastic note, maybe he is going to use the donation to buy his daughter pretty shoes. I'd rather buy my own daughter pretty shoes. Maybe he is going to donate the money to the Salvation Army. I'd rather donate the money to Goodwill.
If the programmer did it that way so that people who are in third world countries can use it without cost, I suggest the programmer state that in his/her license. Charge for the software and have a form which the person can fill out to request a free version due to hardship. You have to be careful with that though, price discrimination is illegal under anti-trade laws. It would likely be legal in this case, if done properly.
I don't mean to get self-righteous about it. I don't have any problems with a programmer who asks for donations. What I have a problem with is the dishonesty, and frankly, the self-righteousness of the programmer who expects me to voluntarily donate to his cause which I know nothing about. I find the dishonesty of not charging for software and expecting payment just as bad as the dishonesty of charging for software and not expecting payment, such as what Netscape did with their shareware license of the original product.
Finally, the fact of the matter is that donation systems don't work. If 75% of the people can afford to pay, and 0.1% of the people actually do, those 1% are paying 75 times as much as they would need to in a market driven system. I'll gladly pay $1/year for slashdot if that's required, but I'm not about to pay $750/year for myself and 749 others. This again is a key distinction from tipping at a resturant. Virtually everyone tips at a resturant, so the expected tip amount is very close to what the market would bear anyway. It also serves a useful purpose, as waiters/waitresses tend to perform better service to recieve better tips. With programming, it's a single service performed to all people simultaneously. You could argue that those people should still each pay a different price, but it's a different argument from the resturant situation (it's also illegal under anti-trade laws).
If that's leaching, then fine, I'm a leach. It certainly is selfish. I don't claim to be unselfish, in the sense that I'll give my excess wealth to causes which *I* believe in, not causes which *you* believe in. We each have a limited amount of time and resources. I believe that we should devote that time and those resources to things that we believe in, not to random people who happen to be good at programming.
No, resturants are completely different. Tips are expected. No one really claims that they're optional. The waiter/waitress only hides the fact that tipping is essentially mandatory to the extent that the resturant owner requires the person to. I don't really agree with the whole system, and if I ever ran a resturant I would include the tip in with the bill, but that is nothing like the situation with the programmer. The waiter/waitress has no choice in the matter but to rely on tipping. The programmer on the other hand has a definate choice. Be honest, and charge for the program if you *expect* payment.
I agree that not all programmers live in silicon valley, but they do all have more money than they *need*. And in the situation I was referring to, the programmer was able to afford a computer, an internet connection, and the time to write a program without any guarantee of payment. I'll make the not-so-bold-in-my-opinion statement that anyone who does that is not starving to death. In case I'm wrong, I'd direct that person to http://www.mcdonalds.com/corporate/careers/contact s/index.html
I understand if the programmer is saying "you don't have to pay if you can't afford it." In a situation like that, I'd probably pay (unless someone else was making an equivalent product for a lower price), that's fair. But if the programmer is saying payment is optional, I'm only going to donate my money if it's to a non-profit organization with a track record of using the money in a way which I support. Optional means optional, and if you tell me I don't have to pay, you have no right to get angry if I don't. There's a term for that, it's called passive-aggressive.
It seems to me an even more dismal view of human nature that anyone would give a donation to a programmer living in silicon valley when there are children starving to death in third world countries. Sorry, if my choice is to voluntarily give a C programmer an extra 500 megs in his/her hard drive or to give a starving child an extra day of life on this planet, I'll give to the starving child.
"In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License."
The 15 dollar question being: is an ISO aggregation, or is it a derivitive work? I'd probably bet on the side of aggregation.
What's wrong with monitoring the "free speech"? If it's posted on a public server, it's by definition public, anyone can monitor it.
Metallica is free to do whatever it pleases. You are free to not listen to their music if you don't want to follow their rules. If you think you have a better system, follow RMS's lead. Implement your better system, and use it.
Err, no, that is exactly why I leave myself the 50% buffer... If I really thought my portfolio was going to go down more than 50%, I would adjust accordingly. In reality I'd be out much sooner than that. I'm not sure exactly what I did learn in school, but whatever it was that taught me to get the hell out of the internet stocks when they started to come crashing down couldn't have been that bad. It's the only reason I have any money left to "buy low" now. Even in a bad economy and terrible market, there are always good stocks to buy. Boeing has been my latest, as a hedge against the idiot we just elected, but I just got out of them a couple weeks ago.
Except that this is the problem that people have complained about the centralized Napster model. There has to be at minimum a list of napster servers to connect to.
That's why you don't host the Napster servers on Sealand, you host the dynamic list of napster server ip addresses on Sealand. When one gets shut down, you start up a new one. Put sealand at the top of the pyramid, tree out from there. Keep everything except sealand consumer based and not-for-profit and there's no way in hell to shut it down without shutting down sealand. P2P always needs *some* centralization to work, but very little is actually necessary.
Just to clarify, these suggestions are for a legally run napster serving only constituionally protected free speech, not metallica mp3s.