No, it isn't quite that good. It takes a panel three years of energy production to pay back the *energy* cost of making the panel. At today's wholesale energy rates it takes around 20 years to pay back the *money* cost of the panel (including installation, shipping, etc). Still, after 20 years a panel is usually producing at around 70%-80% of its original output, and will continue to produce at that rate for another 20 years, which makes them quite viable in the long term.
Personally, I'd rather we spent the money on fusion research, or fuel cells, or something else. But people really like the idea of solar, even though it really isn't the most effective way to go. Orbital solar might be well worth it, but planetary solar always seemed like more work than its worth. I just can't stand seeing the "solar never repays its energy cost" false argument; that doesn't mean I'm a huge fan of solar.
Not that I don't believe you or anything, but I don't believe you. Solar panels are not fragile. They're designed to withstand quite a bit of punishment, typically with a nice layer of high temper (ie: bullet proof) glass over the panels.
While you are correct regarding ethanol, you are in error about solar power. It takes a typical solar panel roughly three years of production to pay back the energy it took to create. That isn't good, but its hardly as bad as ethanol. After three years you see a net power gain.
The main expense (in terms of energy) in producing solar panels is the silicon wafer that most commercial panels are based on. A company called Astropower (now defunct) recycled flawed wafers from chip manufacturers. That cut the energy payback time to three months.
Nice sig, but shouldn't it be "support diversity", or "support weirdness", or something similar? The first ammendment just guarantees people a right to speak, it doesn't mean I have to listen.
For my money, I see so many "Fuck Whoever", and "GNAA" posts when I read at -1 that I only bother when I'm moderating. Their first ammendment rights a) don't apply to a privately owned board, and b) don't mean I have to wade through the crap they spew to see the good stuff.
I'm completely offtopic here, but it bugs me to see the whole "first ammendment guarantees an audience" argument.
This is just blatant disrespect of all sorts... Real already tried to setup an "alliance" with Apple once and was denied, and now it just goes around it in it's own world and bypasses Apple. Not cool.
I think you've lost touch with objective reality here. Apple sells a piece of hardware, someone finds a new use for said hardware, and you think that's wrong? By what insane imagining could it possibly be wrong for someone to write new software for legally purchased hardware?
I can see how Apple would want to keep the iPod playing just their own DRM poisoned iTunes format files, but why should I care what they want? If I legally purchase a piece of hardware I have the right to do whatever I want with it. It might void my warranty, but otherwise, screw 'em if they don't like my mods. Obviously RealMedia is hoping to get money here, but again, what's wrong with that?
How does this stop anyone from writing SenderID checking software that is GPL'd or GPL friendly?
It stops it because MS has patents on some of the critical aspects of the "standard", and their license for using the "standard" can be modified to preclude someone from implementing a GPL'd implementation. It doesn't now, but they explicitly reserve all rights, and state that they can modify the license at any moment, so what keeps them from screwing us with this?
Look at what SCO is doing now, claiming to own ELF, using that as an attempt to demand money from Linux users. If we let MS's non-open "standard" become a real standard they'll wait a few years until everyone depends on it, then use it as a weapon to try and crush competition. I'm not being paranoid here, I'm simply extrapolating from MS's history; they do that sort of thing on a regular basis.
All the GPL does is ensure thaat you can't steal someone's GPLed work. People put their work under the GPL not out of alturism, but in the expectation that they will get source code in return. Having source available to experiment with, learn from, etc is essential to hacking. You don't like that, you can go pay for access with someone who wants money in exchange for source. It isn't complex: GPL = source for source, propriatary = money for source, BSD = no payment for source. The problem with the BSD license is that it means that only other really alturistic people will release their source, the GPL ensures a supply of new source.
You're also deliberately misunderstanding the difference between a standard and an implementaiton of that standard. The TCP/IP protocol is completely open, and anyone can write any sort of implementation they want to. Which is kind of the point of this whole thread. MS's proposed "standard" isn't necessarially open, they've got patents on many of the critical aspects. Today they say "oh, don't worry about those patents, they're just a formality, we'll never charge a license fee for that. And we'll certainly never outright deny licensing to our competitors, never!", tomorrow what keeps them from demanding fees for using their patented ideas? Bugger that. The underlying protocols *must* be completely open and completely free of patents or else we run into massive incompatibility problems, fragmented internet, etc. Your mention of the GPL is simply to allow you to take a cheap swipe at RMS, a fetish I'll admit I don't see the attraction of.
Seriously, do you *want* to see us go back to the bad old days of multiple, incompatible, network communication? Because that's what MS is leading us to.
Of course the situation in the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" [1] is different. And I'm certainly not saying that the US should have waged war against N. Korea. I am saying that the war in Iraq has tied down a large percentage of our infantry, taken (so far) more than $200 billion, etc. Given the unsettled situation that the world is in right now, I think we'd be better off if we didn't have such a large percentage of our forces tied down in Iraq [2].
[1] Its been said before, but I'll repeat it: any government that puts the word "people's" in its name does not have the interests of its poeple in mind.
[2] I am speaking here mostly of infantry. I do realize that very few naval forces are involved. But the navy, while useful, can only bomb and fire missiles. Actual occupation, military police work, etc requires infantry.
I can definately see that argument. On the gripping hand, I can see arguments from the other side as well. Generally speaking I'll definately agree that preemptive attacks are a bad policy. Bush's statement that he wants to employ "preemptive attacks" (the old "I hit him back first" line) makes me very nervous.
However, despite my general agreement with you that the US shouldn't really be in the business of toppling governments, I do see the elemination of a dictator as a good thing. I also tend to think its pretty transient, because I can quite easily see the current (unelected) "President" of Iraq becoming its new dictator. "Here's the new boss, same as the old boss..." I hope I'm wrong, but I do strongly suspect that democracy in Iraq is going to be a hollow sham.
Sure it is, Saddam was a vile dictator. It just isn't worth 900+ American lives, $200+ billion, and shitcaning all the goodwill that 9/11 brought the USA. On the scale of evil dictators, Saddam ranked somewhat below Al Bashir (current dictator of Sudan), but above Samuel Doe (former dictator of Lybia) [1]. The Bush government's fixation on Saddam is purely political, nastier dictators exist, as do greater threats to the US (N. Korea, for example).
I was opposed to the war in Iraq (still am, actually, but right now I don't see how the US can ethically withdraw), not out of any love for Saddam, but on the grounds that it was distracting resources from more important threats.
[1] That is, on a scale of vileness, Al Bashir is more vile, while Doe was less vile.
True, and there's no doubt that the glut of gold from the Americas ruined the economy of Spain and Portugal. However, rather than taking money from space, we'd be taking wealth. Money is just a symbol (like gold was), wealth is the real thing: materials, energy, food, etc. It'd take quite a budget to develop any space based industry, but the payoff will make MS look like a mom and pop store.
I'm not saying that its a quick buck, but it is a terriffic long term investment. From a military standpoint, how can you get any higher ground than orbit? I'm astonished that the military hasn't been pushing for even more use of orbital capibilities.
Its been 35 freekin years since we walked on the moon, and look at where we are now. Its as if Colombus had come back to Spain and been told "hey, nice that you found a new continent and everything, but we'd rather sit here with our thumbs up our asses than spend the money to go there".
This is just plain pathetic. There's $135 million for the (proven to be ineffective) "abstenence education" programs, but we can't seem to find the money to maintain NASA at even minimal levels. $200 billion (and rising) for a pointless war in Iraq, but a program that could give the USA a serious strategic and scientific boost gets budget raped. $9.6 billion in tobacco subsidies over the next five years, but screw NASA?
We don't need any furthur evidence that they're smoking crack in Washington people.
35 years ago a human being walked on the moon. Today the furthest we get is Low Earth Orbit. That's bullshit, total bullshit.
Since its the Lesser GPL, they have a bit more leeway. Under section 2 of the LGPL they must distribute all modifications to the LGPLed libraries under the LGPL, but they are allowed to simply use the LGPLed libraries alongside closed source work. Additionally, until March 2002 WINE was distributed under the MIT license [1], so as long as they never used any post March 2002 WINE code they'd be perfectly free to modify and not release their changes.
Brad
[1] Side note to the snarky BSD poster: which is basically the same as the 3-clause BSD license. So much for the inate superiority of the BSD license, huh? Not that I don't like the BSD license, but claiming that its a panacea is just so much nonesense. I think the world needs both licenses, personally.
I think you're misinterperating, and making a C&D sound nicer than it is. A C&D is not a polite request to stop, it is a statement that if you do not immediately comply with their demands then they will sue you. Essentially its a threat, not a request. When you get threatened by a corporation known to use lawsuits to crush competition, not to mention a legal budget that is bigger than you really want to think about, I'd argue that its different from getting a non-threat letter saying "would you please stop that? Here's why we don't want you to keep doing this".
Am I the only one that thinks that many corporate giants are not evil's kinsmen and don't ride a pale horse, and occasionally get things correct?
I don't think that they're evil necessarially, but they are powerful, and mostly uncontrolled. If you get in the way of their profits they will do everything they can to crush you (see entries under MS's use of SCO against Linux for a nice example). That isn't evil, any more than its evil for a polar bear to eat a penguin. But the penguins don't like it.
To totally sidetrack, and leave animal analogies behind, I simply think that corporate power is being alowed to run amok, the current trend towards more and bigger mergers is probably a bigger threat to capitalism than communism ever dreamed of being. I view any concentration of power as a potential threat to individual liberties. Government concentrations of power were pretty closely monitored (until 9/11 and the USA PATRIOT act anyway, these days it seems as if anything goes), but corporate power is largely ignored by those who worry about liberty; despite the fact that corporations can trounce your liberties as much as the government can. On a total side note, I'll add that corporations aren't the only group to worry about, guilds, unions, etc are also potential threats. A group has more power than an individual, thus any group can *potentially* be a threat to individual liberty. There are occasional extremely powerful individuals, but they're the exception not the rule. I'm not a fear case who goes around seeing threats to my liberty everywhere, I just have a healthy degree of concern.
Depends on the games you consider critical. I subscribe, and it does let you play many of the newer games just fine. Warcraft III, etc. OTOH some of the less popular games don't work (Dungeon Keeper and DK 2, StarTopia, etc). If the game is an FPS or one of the other ultra-popular type games, than odds are that it will work, otherwise its a definate maybe.
Personally, I love it, and I don't regret paying for it [1]. When I want to play a supported game I don't have to boot back to Windows, and that's definately a good thing. I do wish they'd spend a bit more time making the older stuff run though. I vote for it every time I can, but the bulk of the votes always wind up going to the latest FPS candy...
.
[1] Put that in your pipe and smoke it, all you "Linux users won't pay for anything" dips.
I was asking myself the same question. Then I looked at this page (linked by werdnapk in another thread here) and the reason suddenly became apparent. The first photo (Flash just to keep up the use of pointless Flash), answered around 80% of my "why the heck do this" question.
According to the English articles due to the steep sides of the valley cause massive traffic bottlenecks. Though if I'd owned a convenience store or gas station that was profiting from the bottlenecks I'd be irked ^_^
An agnostic, on the other hand, doesn't think it is possible to know whether deities exist.
So it is quite plausible to be an agnostic theist as well as an agnostic atheist.
You're missing the point, an agnostic holds that the question is unanswerable, or at least unanswered. While you are quite correct in saying that ultimately there are only two options (theism and athiesm) the agnostic doesn't fall into either camp. It is possible, of course, to be an agnostic theist, or an agnostic athiest, but it is hardly necessary.
Let's take an example: a box either contains a blue coin, or it does not. The coinist would believe in the existance of the coin, the acoinist would not believe in the coin. Both are expressing belief. The agnostic refuses belief, he accepts that he is ignorant about the existance, or non-existance, of the coin. The decision is suspened, possibly forever.
I'm definately in the camp of the self-admitted ignorant. I do not know whether any deity exists or not. I can't be an athiest, because I don't *disbelieve* in deities; but I can't be a theist because I don't *believe* in deities either. I'm simply suspending judgement until better evidence comes along. I'm certainly not going to go around having faith in one answer or the other.
I see both athiesm and theism as being essentially the same: both require faith. Agnosticim requires no faith, merely the courage to accept that you don't have an answer to a rather important question. I think that by admitting my ignorance on this topic I'm showing more wisdom than those who claim to know things when there is no evidence. The box might have a coin, then again it might not; unless we can open the box and look I refuse to say one way or the other.
Wow... My jaw is still dropped, I thought you were making that up. "Surely," I thought, "even MS wouldn't try to pull such a major re-writing of history as to claim that they invented the first programming language." But there it is, on MS's own website.
That's on the same level as the Party in 1984 claiming to have invented the steam engine. The Ministry of Truth lives on at MS. I wonder how long before they either a) quietly remove that particular lie, or b) claim that its *obvious* that they meant the first programming language for the Altair, not the first programming language ever. On a side note, I wonder how long it is before someone posts the inevitable "Slashdot slams on MS and the groupthink supports it" post.
Another prime quote from their time-lie: "1997: Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.0 gives users an unparalleled Internet client solution" Its marketing-speak gibberish running head long against reality. Wot the hell is an "Internet client solution"? I also like the breathless descriptive assumption that the world was just waiting for MS to provide this unparalleled Internet client solution becuase until then no one was actually able to use the net, it was just a vast wasteland until they came along and made it available to the masses.
That's whatyou get for running Windows. Xine processes Quicktime files just fine. Quick, feature rich, nice interface, and very few problems. I like it. Actually, I vastly prefer the Xine interface to the Apple Quicktime inerface.
His sexual orientation would be irrelivant, except for the minor little detail that anti-homosexual bigotry is directly responsible for his early death. Turing was insturmental in the British war effort, and had he lived computers might be decades more advanced today. The fact that he was driven to suicide because he was gay makes the fact of his homosexuality important.
My point here is that simply in and of itself anyones sexuality is pretty irrelivant, but the prejudice surrounding homosexuality directly impacted Turing's life. Because fo that failing to mention that he was gay would be similar to failing to mention that Beethoven was deaf. You'll notice that you don't often see articles about Motzart talking about how he was able to hear either. These facts were important to their lives, in a way that, say, Albert Einstein's hetrosexuality wasn't. Streightness is not mentioned much because it is assumed that a person is streight unless its otherwise specified, and due to its wide acceptance hetrosexuality simply doesn't affect a person much. However other sexual specifics are mentioned when its important (JFK's affairs, St. Francis' chastity, etc).
I find your analogy suspect, though I can't actually explain why, I need to work on it...
As for the rest, I think that if everyone obtained their music without paying the RIAA, but gave money to the artists, it would very definately change the system. The RIAA would be starved for money and die. I'm not going to say that whatever evolves to replace the RIAA *must* be better, but I can't see how it could be much worse. Anyway, changing the system for the better wasn't part of your specification, you just said that my approach won't change the system. I argue that it certainly will. Kill the RIAA and the system changes; how specifically the system changes is a totally different argument ^_^
.
I think that mainly I find your argument suspect because I don't think that the people doing the work (whether they are builders or musicians) are getting a fair deal. Yes, they willingly enter into what they contract for, but that doesn't mean its all their fault when they get screwed. Its not as if there were "good" building agencies, or record labels, that they simply chose not to deal with, for the most part, they simply went with the only game in town. Still, I realize that my reply isn't really informative or persuasive. Like I said, I can't agree with your argument, but I need more time to formulate exactly why I can't.
I'm just pointing out that sending money to the artists for downloading music doesn't do any good because so many artists don't actually own rights to the music.
I can't see your argument here. The musician produced the music. I send the musician money. Any side deals involving the rights to the music don't actualy affect the fact that the musician got money from me for his music. How is this not doing any good?
So sending money directly to the artist will in many cases not actually be paying the "owner" of the song.
So what do I care about the "owner" of the song? The whole argument so far has been about paying the creators of music, not the "owners" of that music. Screw 'em. I buy Dropkick Murphy's merchendise [1] because I like their music and I want to give them money, I really don't give a damn if someone other than them technically owns their music.
If the music labels want to start whining about the non-musician "owners" not getting paid, I think they won't get much sympathy. We can all see the benefit of paying artists to continue producing art, but paying parasites like Hillary Rossen [2] isn't somehting that most people think is important. She wants money, let her start singing. Otherwise, screw her and every member of the RIAA, they've screwed us often enough.
.
[1] Just as an example. I'd support more punk bands if more of 'em had bagpipes...
[2] The president of the RIAA, who wrote a fascinating piece about how the poor RIAA isn't making much money off $16 CD's. Read it here.
I will be most precise. The founding fathers of the United States of America were neither traitors to Britan
Precise, but wrong. Treason is defined by Webster's as: Violation of allegiance toward one's country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one's country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.
Sorry, but you will notice that "unless the government is being bad, then its not treason". Treason is not, by definition, a bad thing. A government may deserve to have its people commit treason against it (and I'll argue that the British citizens in North America certainly had cause for their treason). But justified treason is still treason.
Most of the founders of the US government were quite content with their treason. In the prelude to the revolution Patrick Henry was ranting against the Stamp Tax and some of the conservative members of the government said that his complaints were treasonous, his reply: "If this be treason, make the most of it."
So, yes, I'd say that all of the founders of our governmen were traitors to the British government. We probably need more traitors like that.
However, with linux being on the rise as it is; perhaps we can look forward to releases from companies like Adobe
I hope so. More commercial software available on Linux would be great. I like the FOSS ideals, and I'm damn glad that RMS's idea of an open operating system and set of dev tools came to fruition. However, I'm a synthisist at heart: I think that FOSS does some things exceptionally well, and that commercial software does some things exceptionally well. Having the best of both would make my day.
I know I can use Crossover Office and WINE, or WineX, to use many Windows programs, but I'd rather see 'em native for Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I'd rather we spent the money on fusion research, or fuel cells, or something else. But people really like the idea of solar, even though it really isn't the most effective way to go. Orbital solar might be well worth it, but planetary solar always seemed like more work than its worth. I just can't stand seeing the "solar never repays its energy cost" false argument; that doesn't mean I'm a huge fan of solar.
The main expense (in terms of energy) in producing solar panels is the silicon wafer that most commercial panels are based on. A company called Astropower (now defunct) recycled flawed wafers from chip manufacturers. That cut the energy payback time to three months.
For my money, I see so many "Fuck Whoever", and "GNAA" posts when I read at -1 that I only bother when I'm moderating. Their first ammendment rights a) don't apply to a privately owned board, and b) don't mean I have to wade through the crap they spew to see the good stuff.
I'm completely offtopic here, but it bugs me to see the whole "first ammendment guarantees an audience" argument.
I can see how Apple would want to keep the iPod playing just their own DRM poisoned iTunes format files, but why should I care what they want? If I legally purchase a piece of hardware I have the right to do whatever I want with it. It might void my warranty, but otherwise, screw 'em if they don't like my mods. Obviously RealMedia is hoping to get money here, but again, what's wrong with that?
Look at what SCO is doing now, claiming to own ELF, using that as an attempt to demand money from Linux users. If we let MS's non-open "standard" become a real standard they'll wait a few years until everyone depends on it, then use it as a weapon to try and crush competition. I'm not being paranoid here, I'm simply extrapolating from MS's history; they do that sort of thing on a regular basis.
You're also deliberately misunderstanding the difference between a standard and an implementaiton of that standard. The TCP/IP protocol is completely open, and anyone can write any sort of implementation they want to. Which is kind of the point of this whole thread. MS's proposed "standard" isn't necessarially open, they've got patents on many of the critical aspects. Today they say "oh, don't worry about those patents, they're just a formality, we'll never charge a license fee for that. And we'll certainly never outright deny licensing to our competitors, never!", tomorrow what keeps them from demanding fees for using their patented ideas? Bugger that. The underlying protocols *must* be completely open and completely free of patents or else we run into massive incompatibility problems, fragmented internet, etc. Your mention of the GPL is simply to allow you to take a cheap swipe at RMS, a fetish I'll admit I don't see the attraction of.
Seriously, do you *want* to see us go back to the bad old days of multiple, incompatible, network communication? Because that's what MS is leading us to.
[1] Its been said before, but I'll repeat it: any government that puts the word "people's" in its name does not have the interests of its poeple in mind.
[2] I am speaking here mostly of infantry. I do realize that very few naval forces are involved. But the navy, while useful, can only bomb and fire missiles. Actual occupation, military police work, etc requires infantry.
However, despite my general agreement with you that the US shouldn't really be in the business of toppling governments, I do see the elemination of a dictator as a good thing. I also tend to think its pretty transient, because I can quite easily see the current (unelected) "President" of Iraq becoming its new dictator. "Here's the new boss, same as the old boss..." I hope I'm wrong, but I do strongly suspect that democracy in Iraq is going to be a hollow sham.
I was opposed to the war in Iraq (still am, actually, but right now I don't see how the US can ethically withdraw), not out of any love for Saddam, but on the grounds that it was distracting resources from more important threats.
[1] That is, on a scale of vileness, Al Bashir is more vile, while Doe was less vile.
I'm not saying that its a quick buck, but it is a terriffic long term investment. From a military standpoint, how can you get any higher ground than orbit? I'm astonished that the military hasn't been pushing for even more use of orbital capibilities.
This is just plain pathetic. There's $135 million for the (proven to be ineffective) "abstenence education" programs, but we can't seem to find the money to maintain NASA at even minimal levels. $200 billion (and rising) for a pointless war in Iraq, but a program that could give the USA a serious strategic and scientific boost gets budget raped. $9.6 billion in tobacco subsidies over the next five years, but screw NASA?
We don't need any furthur evidence that they're smoking crack in Washington people.
35 years ago a human being walked on the moon. Today the furthest we get is Low Earth Orbit. That's bullshit, total bullshit.
Since its the Lesser GPL, they have a bit more leeway. Under section 2 of the LGPL they must distribute all modifications to the LGPLed libraries under the LGPL, but they are allowed to simply use the LGPLed libraries alongside closed source work. Additionally, until March 2002 WINE was distributed under the MIT license [1], so as long as they never used any post March 2002 WINE code they'd be perfectly free to modify and not release their changes.
Brad
[1] Side note to the snarky BSD poster: which is basically the same as the 3-clause BSD license. So much for the inate superiority of the BSD license, huh? Not that I don't like the BSD license, but claiming that its a panacea is just so much nonesense. I think the world needs both licenses, personally.
To totally sidetrack, and leave animal analogies behind, I simply think that corporate power is being alowed to run amok, the current trend towards more and bigger mergers is probably a bigger threat to capitalism than communism ever dreamed of being. I view any concentration of power as a potential threat to individual liberties. Government concentrations of power were pretty closely monitored (until 9/11 and the USA PATRIOT act anyway, these days it seems as if anything goes), but corporate power is largely ignored by those who worry about liberty; despite the fact that corporations can trounce your liberties as much as the government can. On a total side note, I'll add that corporations aren't the only group to worry about, guilds, unions, etc are also potential threats. A group has more power than an individual, thus any group can *potentially* be a threat to individual liberty. There are occasional extremely powerful individuals, but they're the exception not the rule. I'm not a fear case who goes around seeing threats to my liberty everywhere, I just have a healthy degree of concern.
Personally, I love it, and I don't regret paying for it [1]. When I want to play a supported game I don't have to boot back to Windows, and that's definately a good thing. I do wish they'd spend a bit more time making the older stuff run though. I vote for it every time I can, but the bulk of the votes always wind up going to the latest FPS candy...
.
[1] Put that in your pipe and smoke it, all you "Linux users won't pay for anything" dips.
According to the English articles due to the steep sides of the valley cause massive traffic bottlenecks. Though if I'd owned a convenience store or gas station that was profiting from the bottlenecks I'd be irked ^_^
Let's take an example: a box either contains a blue coin, or it does not. The coinist would believe in the existance of the coin, the acoinist would not believe in the coin. Both are expressing belief. The agnostic refuses belief, he accepts that he is ignorant about the existance, or non-existance, of the coin. The decision is suspened, possibly forever.
I'm definately in the camp of the self-admitted ignorant. I do not know whether any deity exists or not. I can't be an athiest, because I don't *disbelieve* in deities; but I can't be a theist because I don't *believe* in deities either. I'm simply suspending judgement until better evidence comes along. I'm certainly not going to go around having faith in one answer or the other.
I see both athiesm and theism as being essentially the same: both require faith. Agnosticim requires no faith, merely the courage to accept that you don't have an answer to a rather important question. I think that by admitting my ignorance on this topic I'm showing more wisdom than those who claim to know things when there is no evidence. The box might have a coin, then again it might not; unless we can open the box and look I refuse to say one way or the other.
That's on the same level as the Party in 1984 claiming to have invented the steam engine. The Ministry of Truth lives on at MS. I wonder how long before they either a) quietly remove that particular lie, or b) claim that its *obvious* that they meant the first programming language for the Altair, not the first programming language ever. On a side note, I wonder how long it is before someone posts the inevitable "Slashdot slams on MS and the groupthink supports it" post.
Another prime quote from their time-lie: "1997: Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.0 gives users an unparalleled Internet client solution" Its marketing-speak gibberish running head long against reality. Wot the hell is an "Internet client solution"? I also like the breathless descriptive assumption that the world was just waiting for MS to provide this unparalleled Internet client solution becuase until then no one was actually able to use the net, it was just a vast wasteland until they came along and made it available to the masses.
My point here is that simply in and of itself anyones sexuality is pretty irrelivant, but the prejudice surrounding homosexuality directly impacted Turing's life. Because fo that failing to mention that he was gay would be similar to failing to mention that Beethoven was deaf. You'll notice that you don't often see articles about Motzart talking about how he was able to hear either. These facts were important to their lives, in a way that, say, Albert Einstein's hetrosexuality wasn't. Streightness is not mentioned much because it is assumed that a person is streight unless its otherwise specified, and due to its wide acceptance hetrosexuality simply doesn't affect a person much. However other sexual specifics are mentioned when its important (JFK's affairs, St. Francis' chastity, etc).
As for the rest, I think that if everyone obtained their music without paying the RIAA, but gave money to the artists, it would very definately change the system. The RIAA would be starved for money and die. I'm not going to say that whatever evolves to replace the RIAA *must* be better, but I can't see how it could be much worse. Anyway, changing the system for the better wasn't part of your specification, you just said that my approach won't change the system. I argue that it certainly will. Kill the RIAA and the system changes; how specifically the system changes is a totally different argument ^_^
.
I think that mainly I find your argument suspect because I don't think that the people doing the work (whether they are builders or musicians) are getting a fair deal. Yes, they willingly enter into what they contract for, but that doesn't mean its all their fault when they get screwed. Its not as if there were "good" building agencies, or record labels, that they simply chose not to deal with, for the most part, they simply went with the only game in town. Still, I realize that my reply isn't really informative or persuasive. Like I said, I can't agree with your argument, but I need more time to formulate exactly why I can't.
If the music labels want to start whining about the non-musician "owners" not getting paid, I think they won't get much sympathy. We can all see the benefit of paying artists to continue producing art, but paying parasites like Hillary Rossen [2] isn't somehting that most people think is important. She wants money, let her start singing. Otherwise, screw her and every member of the RIAA, they've screwed us often enough.
.
[1] Just as an example. I'd support more punk bands if more of 'em had bagpipes...
[2] The president of the RIAA, who wrote a fascinating piece about how the poor RIAA isn't making much money off $16 CD's. Read it here.
Sorry, but you will notice that "unless the government is being bad, then its not treason". Treason is not, by definition, a bad thing. A government may deserve to have its people commit treason against it (and I'll argue that the British citizens in North America certainly had cause for their treason). But justified treason is still treason.
Most of the founders of the US government were quite content with their treason. In the prelude to the revolution Patrick Henry was ranting against the Stamp Tax and some of the conservative members of the government said that his complaints were treasonous, his reply: "If this be treason, make the most of it."
So, yes, I'd say that all of the founders of our governmen were traitors to the British government. We probably need more traitors like that.
I know I can use Crossover Office and WINE, or WineX, to use many Windows programs, but I'd rather see 'em native for Linux.