I never saw this type of spam/scam before until he pointed it out to me a few days ago. But it has been forwarded to uce.gov so hopefully they can catch this idiot.
These are also called '419 frauds'; Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal Code deals with fraud schemes (More info at http://www.usss.treas.gov/financial_crimes.shtml#N igerian but without the space/. added in Nigerian). Anyway, the correct place to send these is not uce@ftc.gov, but 419.fcd@usss.treas.gov. That's the US Secret Service Financial Crimes Division that investigates the 419/Nigerian frauds (http://www.sec.gov/answers/nigeria.htm for more info).
Just a question for a guy who seems to know about odd IBM OS's...I have a AS/400 Mainframe. WTF is the deal with OS/400? I just need to know what it's based on.
Well, the AS/400 (now the iSeries) is actually classified as a minicomputer, not a mainframe. If you're running one of the RISC boxes (OS/400 version greater than 3.4) then it's a 64-bit PowerPC based computer.
The actual OS traces its roots back to the IBM System/38, which eventually traces back to the S/3. I'm not really sure of the lineage before that, but that takes you back into the 60s. The primary programming languages of the System/38 were RPG and CL, and those are essentially the main languages of the AS/400 (although C and COBOL have always been available for it, and IBM's been putting out a lot of effort on Java for the AS/400).
So basically, OS/400 is based on nothing that any other OS out currently is.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a Clinton fan, but I suspect that preventing tornadoes might not be what he had said. The closest I could find to what you were describing was an F4 tornado with winds to 260 mph destroying the town of Arkadelphia on March 1, 1997. Six killed, about 100 injured, 557 buildings destroyed.
As a result of this, Arkadelphia was named to Project Impact. Project Impact has the goal of preventing natural disaster damage, not by preventing the disasters, but by using construction and design techniques to allow structures to handle the forces of the disaster. Examples would be hurricane clips in Florida buildings, or sway dampers in Los Angles skyscrapers.
Anyway, the best link that I found to Arkadelphia and Project Impact is http://www.arkadelphia.org/pi/pi.html. I wasn't able to find any text of the speech Clinton would have made on his March 3, 1997 visit.
I said (in part): "I have an email account so that I can get messages that I am interested in. I am not interested in ads." You replied: "It's not the government's responsibility to police that - it's yours."
You seemed to be ignorant of the fact that spam causes increased monetary costs to the recipient of the spam. These are the first two sentences in a two paragraph illustration of this to you, which point you seemed to miss entirely. I suspect that this is intentional, and you raise the "Big Brother" spectre of government regulation to try to distract from your "misunderstanding". I'm sorry, these sentences don't have anything to do with regulations, they have to do with my reasons for having email. That is simply as it says, to get email messages that I am interested in, which does not include spam. Your reply is nothing but a flippant response which totally ignores everything you find yourself unable to deal with.
I said (in part): "The analogy above of somebody banging on the door ten times a day has one major flaw in it; there is no expense to the person who owns the door." You replied: "Fine. Then we won't use that analogy."
Apparently you don't want to use the more accurate flower bed analogy that was offered, either. I can understand; I wouldn't want to if I were arguing your position. Once again, your reply is nothing but a flippant response which totally ignores everything you find yourself unable to deal with.
I asked: "Why does the fact that I have an email account ever on its own authorize you to email me?" You replied: "I dispute that I need authorization in the first place."
The question was not, "Do you think that you need authorization," but "Why don't you think you need authorization." We already knew you didn't think you needed authorization. Once again, your reply is nothing but a flippant response which totally ignores everything you find yourself unable to deal with.
But to help you along on this one, consider the following: I pay for a car. If you use it without my authorization, you are nothing but a thief. I pay for the flowers in my flower bed. If you take them without my authorization, you are nothing but a thief. I pay for my email account. If you use it without my authorization, why aren't you nothing but a thief?
I asked: "Why do you feel that your mere existance justifies your "providing" me a service (i.e. spam) at my expense, which I have not asked for and have no desire for?" You replied: "You have implicitly requested to receive emails by setting up an email server. Further, I don't believe that I need any justification to send you email. Your server is free to reject that email. And you are free to not download it, or not read it, or delete it. I am in no way forcing anything upon you."
Again, I didn't ask you what you felt; that was already known. I asked you to justify those opinions. Once again, your reply is nothing but a flippant response which totally ignores everything you find yourself unable to deal with. Have I implicitly given permission for flowers to be picked from my flower bed by having it in my front yard? Has a woman given implicit permission for you to make rude comments and advances at her, just by stepping out of her front door?
Your "response" also fails to deal with the fact that spam causes an increase in costs to the ISP, which then get passed on to me. These cost increases occur even if I don't download it, read it, or just delete it. So your response is wrong; you are forcing something on me, namely increased costs. The question is simple: what right have you to cost me money?
I asked: "Do people have a right to privacy?" You replied: "That's far too broad of a question for me to answer. People don't have a right to stop others from spreading true information about them without a contractual agreement, if that's what you're getting at."
No, I'm getting at exactly what the question asks. Your first sentence might be one of only two direct, correct responses that you give in your whole post. The answer, although you don't want to face it, is, "Yes, but like all rights there are some boundaries on it, where it impinges on the rights and safety of others." The rest of your response, although presented as an absolute, is not. Even though you do like to dress up in garters and a boa and do the Time Warp again in your bedroom, you still have the right to stop me from peeking through your windows, taking pictures of you doing that, and linking to them off Slashdot. It's spreading true information; you're arguing that you don't have the right to stop me. I think you do, and that right's called privacy. Although you try to make this look like a trick question, the only trick to any of these so far is that you don't like the answers, and so try to avoid them. Oh, and that I can figure that out.
I asked if you had a 800-number fax and if you'd post the number, you said you didn't. The second actual straight answer! Bookmark the post; those seem to be rare from you.
I asked, "What do you perceive as the difference between "free speech" and "speech for free"? Is there any?" You replied (in part): "The phrase "speech for free" doesn't really have a set meaning in my mind. It sounds like something you just invented. "Free speech", in my mind, means that the content of one's communications should never be regulated. I don't believe in any exceptions, unless you want to count conspiracy to commit a crime, which I personally see as more of an act than speech."
Okay, I apologize. With your definition of "free speech", two and a half direct responses. I never said that the phrase "speech for free" was an often-used expression. This question was an attempt to clear up the fact that the English phrase "free speech" is ambiguous. Does it mean unfettered speech (as you indicate you understand it), or does it mean speech at no cost to the speaker. As you want to ignore the costs that spam forces on the intended recipients, I can understand why you would want to try to ignore defining "speech for free". While spammers don't have speech for free they do have speech for a reduced cost, since the intended recipient bears a large fraction of the cost of the message.
Your exception is interesting, though. If spam is outlawed, then consipracy to send spam falls under your exception. Does this mean that as soon as spam is outlawed, you would have no problems with communications (including SMTP) to send spam being illegal?
You sig reads: "Oppose a law to criminalize spam - watch your karma go down by 20. Can you say "witch hunt"?"
Let me enlighten you, it's not because your stated opposition to the law. It's because you repeatedly post positions essentially saying, "So what if you don't want to read spam, I want to send it." "So what if it increases your costs, I want to send it." "So what if you think you have the right not to be bothered with it, I think I have the right to bother you." You are constantly posting, "my rights, screw yours." Your karma's dropping because people are saying, "No, screw you." Of course, like everything else that's difficult for you to face, you ignore it.
Post/reply/flame all you want; I'm done with you. If you haven't figured it out by now, you're a waste of any more electrons. As Louis Armstrong said, "There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em."
Okay, then, we'll try to use only simple sentences in hopes that you will understand.
I have an email account so that I can get messages that I am interested in. I am not interested in ads. I pay an ISP for this account. The ISP sets prices for his accounts high enough to cover his costs. Some of these costs include bandwidth, storage space for email, modems for people to connect, and phone lines for those modems. The more of any of these things that the ISP has to have, the more the ISP's costs.
If the ISP does not gain any customers, but the bandwidth used goes up, he will have to raise the prices that I pay. If the ISP does not gain any customers, but the amount of storage space he needs goes up, he will have to raise the prices I pay. If the ISP does not gain any customers, but each customer has to stay connected longer to download their email, the ISP will have to pay for more lines and modems. Then, the prices I pay will have to go up.
If every customer of my ISP starts receiving 100 pieces of spam each day, the ISPs costs will rise, and the price I pay will go up. If every postal customer starts receiving 100 pieces of junk mail every day, my price does not increase. Why? Because with email the recipient pays for the delivery, while with physical mail the sender pays for the delivery.
The analogy above of somebody banging on the door ten times a day has one major flaw in it; there is no expense to the person who owns the door. Change the analogy to "If some guy picked a flower out of my flower bed 10 times a day..." Yes, the flower bed is outside and you can walk to it right from the street. You seem to think that this is an invitation for anybody who wants to to walk up and pick a flower. I (and the law everywhere) disagree. However, if you knock on the door and ask if you can pick a flower, I can then opt-in to your using my flower bed ("Sure, pick one any time.")
In your flippant answers above, one of the questions was, "So why does the fact that I have an email account ever allow you to message me?" Technically, you answered the question asked and not the question intended. So here are a few of the intended questions for you to answer:
Why does the fact that I have an email account ever on its own authorize you to email me?
Why do you feel that your mere existance justifies your "providing" me a service (i.e. spam) at my expense, which I have not asked for and have no desire for?
Do people have a right to privacy?
Do you have a fax machine on an 800- number? Please provide that number.
What do you perceive as the difference between "free speech" and "speech for free"? Is there any?
(Personally, I think that the word "unfettered" needs to be hauled out and dusted off. It would make some of these conversations a lot easier.)
Chris Beckenbach
Re:Design patterns and Lisp
on
Bitter Java
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· Score: 1
Kinda dissapointing when The Man agrees with you and concedes that the sign is a good thing.
I'm going to disagree with you and say that it's kinda inspiring. This was, it seems to me, a textbook case of civil disobedience. The artist thought that something was wrong with the system. Although he broke rules to make his point, his actions provided harm to nobody (and acutally provided benefit). It's good to see the system acting in a mature manner, instead of throwing a temper tantrum and arresting him.
that would be breaking and entering, and I could legally shoot them if I catch 'em doing it.
Ummmm.... No, be very careful there. Even in your own home, you do not have the legal right to use deadly force except when protecting yourself or another from immediate danger of death or severe injury. If you shoot an unarmed intruder just for being in your home, you're probably going to jail. As soon as they have a gun, knife, baseball bat, pipe wrench, etc. they're fair game, though. Also if you're a 100-pound woman and the intruder's a 300-pound man.
If you own a gun and you're not 100% sure if I'm right or wrong, I'd advise you to look in the Yellow Pages under "Gun Safety" or "Firearms Instruction". They should be able to fill you in on such concepts as the Castle Doctrine and Disparity of Force. The book "In the Gravest Extreme" is also a good idea for a read.
Off-topic? Yeah, but I'm at the karma cap anyway. If burning three worthless points keeps one of you clowns from being victimized twice (intruder & system) then they're well spent.
I think his attempts to generalize to the music industry don't have sufficent basis.
At the end of his article, Flint says:
Yet I was struck by how often-perhaps in a hundred letters-the writers would mention their own experience with Napster. And, in every instance, stated that their purchases of CDs increased as a result of Napster-for the good and simple reason that because Napster enabled them to sample musicians, they bought music they would not otherwise have been tempted to buy because CDs are too expensive to experiment with.
So if 100% of the hundred or so letters that he has that touch on the subject is not sufficient basis, what would satisfy you?
So then the spammer fills his database with these non-existant addresses on existing domain names. He then sends his spam to these addresses, and their mail servers not only have to process the message to determine that it's an invalid address, but they also have to bounce the message back as undeliverable.
So? The right answer is to make sure that the domain names you are giving out will be valid. Just go to http://www.spamhaus.org/ and compile a list of valid domains of current active spammers. Randomly select from these when generating bogus email addresses. It doesn't get rid of the network bandwidth issue, but it does chew up the resources of the spammers' servers since they will have to process the incoming messages. Let the spammers DOS each other.
There is a difference. What Microsoft is licensing here is access to the Technical Reference to their protocols, so people are saying that developers could just decline the license agreement, not access the Microsoft techincal reference, and reverse engineer the protocols. (There's some discussions about one person agreeing to the license agreement, then letting somebody else who hasn't look at the reference, but there's a redistribution clause that this would violate.)
In the case of GPLed software, the license is to access the acutal code/program, and not a technical reference about the software. If you don't accept the GPL license, you can't (legally) have access to what's licensed, which is the code. However, you could still reverse engineer something and make a program that operates just like the GPL program; with that program you could do anything you want.
Summary: Microsoft license is for documentation; don't agree to license, don't read documentation. GPL license is for source code; don't agree to license, don't read source code. Both instances, reverse engineer to replace what you lose by not agreeing to license.
...the constitutional rights that are granted are granted to US citizens...
All right, TIME OUT! It makes me want to scream every time I hear somebody talk about their rights that are granted by the Constitution (or Bill of Rights). This is a very important point when talking about your rights: No rights are granted to US citizens by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Zero. Zip. Not a one. Nada.
If you haul out a copy of the Bill of Rights (or search on Google if you don't have a paper copy handy), read them very carefully. Look a the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Does it say, "the people shall have the right to peaceably assemble"? No, it says that Congress can't make a law abridging that right, implicitly assuming that the people have that right. Or the rights catch-all amendment, the Ninth: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The framers of the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence believed that rights were granted by a higher power than man or government, and as such could never be granted or taken away by man or government. The Bill of Rights was written, not to grant rights to citizens, but to put boundaries on the powers the government would try to excercise. When you talk about "rights granted by the Constitution", you are actually belittling your rights, as you are saying that they were granted to you by man and thus could be taken from you by man. They can't be; they can only be given away, but that's the road you're starting down when you don't properly recoginze the origin of your rights.
So, properly recognizing the source of rights as above man or government, is it particually surprising that a foreign entity could offer a First and Fifth Amendment argument in a case? It's not to me. I would view a refusal to allow such an argument as a major threat to the rights of all US citizens, as it would be an implicit assertion that the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are granted (and thus can be taken away) at the US government level.
We now return you to your normal, light, funny Slashdot, already in progress. Time in.
US citizens and the US government want everyone to follow US laws and courts.
As a US citizen, I don't want everybody everywhere to follow US laws and courts. For that matter, there's a lot of US laws (passed by the legislature and, unfortunately, the courts) that we'd be better off if the US citizens didn't have to follow, too.
The recent case you cite--the journalist kidnapped and killed in Pakistan--should remain totally in Pakistan. Several years ago, when a US kid in Singapore was going to be caned for vandalizing cars, the US really had no business stepping in and trying to get his punishment changed. When we have a US sailor accused of a rape in Okinawa, we should determine if he will get a fair trial. If so, turn him on over; a fair trial in Okinawa should be as threatening to an innocent man as a fair trial in Des Moines (Iowa).
While I believe that, in too large a part your statement is accurate, I just wanted to let you know that I don't think it's 100% accurate.
It's amazing that the blurb says, "David Charbonneau is looking for another planet just like Earth, and claims that astronomers are 'very close'", since the linked article talks almost exclusively about finding massive gas giants. The only place where Earth-like planets are discussed is due to a question asked by the interviewer:
PQ: How long will it be before scientists might be able to study the atmospheres of Earth-like planets around other stars?
Charbonneau: That's much more difficult. We are close to being able to find Earth-like planets. But it may be decades before we are able to study their atmospheres.
So why might he think that we are close to being able to find Earth-like planets? Maybe he read Can We Find Another Earth? from the March 2002 issue of Discover magazine. This article talks about a lens configuration developed by David Spergel of Princeton, which uses interference to block out the glare of a star along one axis, and should allow for optically resolving Earth-like planets around nearby stars.
Every square centimeter of every piece of lab equipment everywhere on the planet is covered in bacteria and virii. Merely killing the little critters is not enough for this type of experiment to be valid. Their bodies must be done away with...Until all organic compounds are removed from the system (which we can't do), claims of creating spontaneous amino acids are invalid.
Valid results can still be achieved without pristine conditions. This is why running a "control" is essential in experimentation. Take 20 apparatus, and clean them of amino acids as best we can. Take 10, and test them for amino acid levels. This is our control, and establishes a baseline level for amino acids after our cleaning. Run the experiment in the other 10 apparatus, and then test them for amino acid levels. Do your statistical analysis, get your confidence levels, and you've got valid results.
Legal case for what? for allowing you to use Office 2000 under Linux without Windows? it's YOU that signs that EULA, not codeweavers. Do you see MS start chasing after thousands of customers who will buy this?
Yeah, Microsoft going after Codeweavers for writing this would be kind of like, say, some organization going after an individual who had written code that would allow for DVDs to be played under Linux. We all know they's go after the people doing the playing, instead.
Ah, yes, I have fond memories of the good times playing Gravitar. I'm glad that these scientists have finally found something besides boring Physics to entertain themseleves with.
This is from their creed. That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others;
This might be in their creed, but they leave themselves a hole you could throw a cat spread-eagle through and not hit a side. As I understand their belief system, they could consistently argue that if you have not been cleared of body thetans (only possible through their methods), then you are not thinking, talking or writing freely. Instead, you are doing those under the influence of those thetans. A sure sign that you need their help!
Legally he's found a loophole to cover his ass and can happily spam the same list as long as he's selling something different.
I've got your friend's father's loop hole right here... I don't bother doing that non-functional REMOVE address junk. I make sure that the headers have not been forged (SpamCop helps to make this quick) then forward the spam back to abuse, postmaster, admin, webmaster and root at the sending box. I append the following to the front:
"Sirs":
I have not granted any permissions to you to use my email address or collect personal information about me. You are hereby instructed to immediately, permanently and totally remove any and all information collected in regards to me and any reference to my email address from any and every computer system, on- and off-line storage device or media that you may possess, own, rent or utilize. You are also hereby explicitly notified that you have no permission whatsoever to exchange or propagate any personal information or email address to any "business partners" or other third parties.
Any further traffic from you will result in immediate notification of any and all upstream providers, with the exception of a single notification by you to me that the above instructions have been completely followed, or auto-responders acknowledging a single time the receipt of this email. Any traffic from third parties that indicates that your dissemination of my personal information and/or email address was involved in producing that traffic will also result in the immediate notification of their and your upstream providers.
That pretty much stomps his loophole into the ground. Then, when I follow up (and I do follow up) if I get more from the spammer, I've got a pretty strong case with his up-stream. Most often, though, this seems to suffice. (I have, however, had to resort to ferreting out the direct e-mail address of an Executive Vice President of a tier-1 when I had been complaining to their abuse for a month with no results, so nothing's perfect.)
Interestingly enough, I did receive a spam from Virtumundo, saying that they got my address from Mindset Interactive. When I sent them my standard reply above, I received an actual reply back the next day from Virtumundo Customer Support Manager saying that she had personally unsubscribed my address from their database, and that was indeed the last thing I have received from Virtumundo.
Hmm, could you get out of paying some measure of taxes by placing all of your money in PayPal from Dec 31 to Jan 1? End of year statement would say that you didn't have any money in the bank collecting interest.
Ummmmm.... No. It doesn't matter how much you have in the bank at the end of the year, it matters how much interest was paid to you through the course of the year. <UScentric>The 1099 INT you receive from your bank at the end of the year shows the dollar amount of the interest paid to you, but contains no information about the amount of principal that was used to generate the interest income. After all, it's an income tax, not a property tax, so they care about the interest, not the principal.</UScentric>
During at least part of the period when employee payrolls were not met, Loki sometimes gave employees "advances" on salary owed. Former employees say that these advances were in the amount of their net pay; the benefit to the company was that federal and state taxes on the payroll were not paid, because the money was treated as loans rather than pay.
If I were a Loki employee that received one of these "advances", I'd make plans to talk to a lawyer, because the screwing might not be over. If these payments were actually made with the understanding that they were loans against future salary payments, the bankruptcy court might view the amounts as monies owed to the company, and thus an asset of Loki. If so, the employees might be required to repay the full amount, and then file as creditors for the amount of their salary owed (Pay back $1, get back $0.10 if you're lucky.) I would think that a 1099 for the 2001 tax year for the amount of the advances received would be evidence that the advance amount had been forgiven, so the emplyees shouldn't have to worry about amounts advanced in 2001; however, the court might still consider any of these advances made in 2002 as loans. IANAL, but I would think it would be prudent to talk to one in this situation.
Perens is dismantling Mundies FUD in a calm, businesslike way. Let's hope that the debate on MS FUD stays this calm and reasonable
I agree; however, I think that Perens didn't help himself in the last paragraph where he said, "Did you notice how the Microsoft antitrust prosecution suddenly became less of a priority after the U.S. presidential election?" Three sentences from the end, the editorial swerves from being about how Microsoft is wrong about the GPL to being about the Microsoft anti-trust case. Perens laid out a very good case against the Microsoft FUD over the GPL, which stands on its own without the Microsoft anti-trust case. By making a swipe at the change of the DOJ's handling of the Microsoft case, Perens runs the needless risk of alienating some of the people he may have just won over with his well laid-out argument.
Slashdot Mirror
Chris Beckenbach
The actual OS traces its roots back to the IBM System/38, which eventually traces back to the S/3. I'm not really sure of the lineage before that, but that takes you back into the 60s. The primary programming languages of the System/38 were RPG and CL, and those are essentially the main languages of the AS/400 (although C and COBOL have always been available for it, and IBM's been putting out a lot of effort on Java for the AS/400).
So basically, OS/400 is based on nothing that any other OS out currently is.
Chris Beckenbach
As a result of this, Arkadelphia was named to Project Impact. Project Impact has the goal of preventing natural disaster damage, not by preventing the disasters, but by using construction and design techniques to allow structures to handle the forces of the disaster. Examples would be hurricane clips in Florida buildings, or sway dampers in Los Angles skyscrapers.
Anyway, the best link that I found to Arkadelphia and Project Impact is http://www.arkadelphia.org/pi/pi.html. I wasn't able to find any text of the speech Clinton would have made on his March 3, 1997 visit.
Chris Beckenbach
Chris Beckenbach
Ohhh.... Did I say that?
I asked, "What do you perceive as the difference between "free speech" and "speech for free"? Is there any?" You replied (in part): "The phrase "speech for free" doesn't really have a set meaning in my mind. It sounds like something you just invented. "Free speech", in my mind, means that the content of one's communications should never be regulated. I don't believe in any exceptions, unless you want to count conspiracy to commit a crime, which I personally see as more of an act than speech."
You sig reads: "Oppose a law to criminalize spam - watch your karma go down by 20. Can you say "witch hunt"?" Post/reply/flame all you want; I'm done with you. If you haven't figured it out by now, you're a waste of any more electrons. As Louis Armstrong said, "There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em."Chris Beckenbach
I have an email account so that I can get messages that I am interested in. I am not interested in ads. I pay an ISP for this account. The ISP sets prices for his accounts high enough to cover his costs. Some of these costs include bandwidth, storage space for email, modems for people to connect, and phone lines for those modems. The more of any of these things that the ISP has to have, the more the ISP's costs.
If the ISP does not gain any customers, but the bandwidth used goes up, he will have to raise the prices that I pay. If the ISP does not gain any customers, but the amount of storage space he needs goes up, he will have to raise the prices I pay. If the ISP does not gain any customers, but each customer has to stay connected longer to download their email, the ISP will have to pay for more lines and modems. Then, the prices I pay will have to go up.
If every customer of my ISP starts receiving 100 pieces of spam each day, the ISPs costs will rise, and the price I pay will go up. If every postal customer starts receiving 100 pieces of junk mail every day, my price does not increase. Why? Because with email the recipient pays for the delivery, while with physical mail the sender pays for the delivery.
The analogy above of somebody banging on the door ten times a day has one major flaw in it; there is no expense to the person who owns the door. Change the analogy to "If some guy picked a flower out of my flower bed 10 times a day..." Yes, the flower bed is outside and you can walk to it right from the street. You seem to think that this is an invitation for anybody who wants to to walk up and pick a flower. I (and the law everywhere) disagree. However, if you knock on the door and ask if you can pick a flower, I can then opt-in to your using my flower bed ("Sure, pick one any time.")
In your flippant answers above, one of the questions was, "So why does the fact that I have an email account ever allow you to message me?" Technically, you answered the question asked and not the question intended. So here are a few of the intended questions for you to answer:
- Why does the fact that I have an email account ever on its own authorize you to email me?
- Why do you feel that your mere existance justifies your "providing" me a service (i.e. spam) at my expense, which I have not asked for and have no desire for?
- Do people have a right to privacy?
- Do you have a fax machine on an 800- number? Please provide that number.
- What do you perceive as the difference between "free speech" and "speech for free"? Is there any?
(Personally, I think that the word "unfettered" needs to be hauled out and dusted off. It would make some of these conversations a lot easier.)Chris Beckenbach
Chris Beckenbach
Chris Beckenbach
If you own a gun and you're not 100% sure if I'm right or wrong, I'd advise you to look in the Yellow Pages under "Gun Safety" or "Firearms Instruction". They should be able to fill you in on such concepts as the Castle Doctrine and Disparity of Force. The book "In the Gravest Extreme" is also a good idea for a read.
Off-topic? Yeah, but I'm at the karma cap anyway. If burning three worthless points keeps one of you clowns from being victimized twice (intruder & system) then they're well spent.
Chris Beckenbach
Chris Beckenbach
Chris Beckenbach
In the case of GPLed software, the license is to access the acutal code/program, and not a technical reference about the software. If you don't accept the GPL license, you can't (legally) have access to what's licensed, which is the code. However, you could still reverse engineer something and make a program that operates just like the GPL program; with that program you could do anything you want.
Summary: Microsoft license is for documentation; don't agree to license, don't read documentation. GPL license is for source code; don't agree to license, don't read source code. Both instances, reverse engineer to replace what you lose by not agreeing to license.
Chris Beckenbach
Chris Beckenbach
If you haul out a copy of the Bill of Rights (or search on Google if you don't have a paper copy handy), read them very carefully. Look a the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Does it say, "the people shall have the right to peaceably assemble"? No, it says that Congress can't make a law abridging that right, implicitly assuming that the people have that right. Or the rights catch-all amendment, the Ninth: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The framers of the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence believed that rights were granted by a higher power than man or government, and as such could never be granted or taken away by man or government. The Bill of Rights was written, not to grant rights to citizens, but to put boundaries on the powers the government would try to excercise. When you talk about "rights granted by the Constitution", you are actually belittling your rights, as you are saying that they were granted to you by man and thus could be taken from you by man. They can't be; they can only be given away, but that's the road you're starting down when you don't properly recoginze the origin of your rights.
So, properly recognizing the source of rights as above man or government, is it particually surprising that a foreign entity could offer a First and Fifth Amendment argument in a case? It's not to me. I would view a refusal to allow such an argument as a major threat to the rights of all US citizens, as it would be an implicit assertion that the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are granted (and thus can be taken away) at the US government level.
We now return you to your normal, light, funny Slashdot, already in progress. Time in.
Chris Beckenbach
The recent case you cite--the journalist kidnapped and killed in Pakistan--should remain totally in Pakistan. Several years ago, when a US kid in Singapore was going to be caned for vandalizing cars, the US really had no business stepping in and trying to get his punishment changed. When we have a US sailor accused of a rape in Okinawa, we should determine if he will get a fair trial. If so, turn him on over; a fair trial in Okinawa should be as threatening to an innocent man as a fair trial in Des Moines (Iowa).
While I believe that, in too large a part your statement is accurate, I just wanted to let you know that I don't think it's 100% accurate.
Chris Beckenbach
Chris Beckenbach
Chris Beckenbach
Chris Beckenbach
What's that, you say? Oh, gravistar. Nevermind...
Chris Beckenbach
Chris Beckenbach
Interestingly enough, I did receive a spam from Virtumundo, saying that they got my address from Mindset Interactive. When I sent them my standard reply above, I received an actual reply back the next day from Virtumundo Customer Support Manager saying that she had personally unsubscribed my address from their database, and that was indeed the last thing I have received from Virtumundo.
Chris Beckenbach
Chris Beckenbach
Chris Beckenbach
Chris Beckenbach