Bush: "... I just--ours is a great land. And one of the reasons why, is because we're free. And so, I don't support censorship. But I do believe that we ought to talk plainly to the Hollywood moguls and people who produce this stuff [in reference to "pornography and violence"], and explain the consequences. I think we need to have rating systems that are clear. And I happen to like the idea of having technology for the TV, easy for parents to use, so you can tune out these programs that you don't want in your house.
So what you're saying is, "I don't support censorship. We shouldn't force the companies who make this stuff to stop, but rather beat the living shit out of them until they submit.
On a separate note, I just discovered that my school's T3 is running SurfWatch blocking software (I'm trying to find a workaround to it, we'll see) and it hasn't yet blocked/. (I'm posting this from my programming class now). Anyone wonder how long it will be before they do get around to filtering this out?
It's funny... 7 years ago, when I was ten and started using a computer, I was treated by both teachers and fellow students like some sort of god for my "advanced knowledge" (my 7th grade mythology project was a simple text-based game I programmed in QBasic). Now I'm treated by teachers as a subversive, like I'm some sort of evil cancer that's going to destroy their sensibilities... my fellow students still treat me like a god though =)
I don't see how everyone on/. can be so opposed to this! Arcade gaming -- nay, ALL forms of gaming! -- is inherently dangerous to society! Don't they see where this is leading? Imagine, only a year from now, hundreds -- even thousands! -- of gamers wandering the streets trying to get just one more dose of PAC-MAN! It'll be utter anarchy! The government will have to pour hundreds of of millions of dollars into the war on games. Commercials with terrible statistics ("Every five minutes, another child eats a dot..." and "By the time a child is 6, he will have beaten over 6000 levels"), catchy slogans ("Just say no to dots"), and recovery organizations ("STUPIDS = Stop These Users from Playing Inherently Dangerous Stuff") will dominate television... it'll be terrible. And those pro-gaming advocates... they don't see it either! "People don't eat ghosts... PAC-MAN eats ghosts." Don't they see it! With the level or reality in those games, the people BECOME the PAC-MAN! Won't somebody please think of the children!
IANALU, but I use Corel Photopaint 8 for my Windows PC, and that doesn't have any perceptible loss. I only mention this because I'm pretty sure it's available for Linux, since Corel makes it. Good software, I HIGHLY reccommend it. (Also, IMHO, while it might cost as much as Adobe Photoshop, it's ten times better because of one reason: its interface.)
``It might sound hokey, but it's unbelievable. You get white racists and homophobic people and black racists who started communicating with each other in a way that allows them to express whatever anger or hatred or fear they have, because it's not punished,'' he said. ``Over time, I've seen people transformed.''
There's your true freedom of speech. When racists and homophobes and xenophobes can communicate their beliefs without fear of backlash, that's when the system is actually working FOR the little guy. Don't get me wrong, I really dislike racism, but think about it. If I was a conservative lawmaker, I might be inclined to deny racists freedom to discuss their beliefs in a public forum just because of liability, if not also for moral reasons. Same thing goes for religious lawmakers, and big buisness lawmakers... and NERD lawmakers (none yet, but it will happen). The fact that ANY issue, quite litterally, can be discussed in a public forum is a TRUE example of freedom of speech; and in that context, I think the internet will--in only a few years more--put a VERY high standard on that freedom. Just some stuff to think about.
Did it occur to anyone that _if_ (and that's a damn big "if") by some Act of God or something, Ms. Love wins, she's getting money from mp3.com. The industry could turn this right back at us and say "see, even ADVOCATES of the [Napster, Free Music, Piracy, whatever] Movement are greedy pigs, just like us!" Has she stated anything concerning what she would do with the money if she wins? I'd love to know before I throw my fist in the air and say "You go girl!"
The only real solution would be to go in with an army, kill/imprison the dictators, impose a democratic government, occupy the country for the 20 years it took for things to settle down...
Isn't that a defining characteristic of the dictatorships themselves? I don't think you can impose a democratic government; that's not the democratic way of doing things... just a thought.
Napster is walking in your house, stealing your stereo, and giving it away on the street - and the people buying it are screaming "Equipment should be Free!" and "We're just borrowing it to try it. If we like it, we'll buy one."
Almost, but not quite. It's like walking into a house with an infinite number of stereos, stealing one, and saying all of that. If I "steal" a song off of Napster, the artists don't own the song any less; they still have full access to the song and can continue to replicate and sell it (read: rip off) to others even if I steal a copy of it. My stealing it will not actually cost them any money if I wasn't going to buy it in the first place. However, if I steal it and like it, I might just go out and buy it. If not, it's a sale they never would have made anyway. But if I do, then they make money. Truth is, I can't d/l whole albums; I'm on 56k. And for people like me, napster can actually be about sharing and sampling music!
And while the man with infinite stereos (and therefore, infinite potential for profit) can argue that I'm still stealing, I can argue that if he loses nothing by my "stealing" it than it wasn't really theft at all. It is, for all intents and purposes, a victimless crime.
Of the six cds I bought in the last month, 5 of them got bad reviews. I sampled all of them thru napster before I bought them, and I haven't been disappointed by any of them. I won, and the RIAA won. How's that for napster? Was it legal? No. Was it moral? Absolutely.
A lot of you are calling for episodes of some of the better shows (Robotech, Akira, FotNS, etc) but the fact of the matter is that they would have to be dumbed down in order to be accessable to the 5 year olds who watch CN. A great example of this is Sailor Moon. In it's original, uncut japanese format, the show has a great wealth of deeper material, but in order to make it accessable to the american audience, it had to be "americanized," which means it was dumbed down. Do we really want to see all of the great content we love in these shows stricken from them because it would upset the 5 y/o's? I say support the companies who release on DVD or VHS and hope for a better translation. We can't afford to lose content like that for a free viewing (besides, we can always just copy it thru DivX;-) or bootleg it later).
And when it fails miserably, we'll all have the pleasure of watching the media murder space travel, and corporations will be too scared to even consider space flight for another twenty years.
file shareing software will evolve much faster than blocking software will, which side do you think has the best/brightest/most people on it's side?
That's the whole point, isn't it? Why is it that these things always get the whole community all fired up and worried? We can fight it, we know this. Yes, it's a bad thing that we HAVE to fight it, but at least we CAN. Finkployd got it right: we have the best and brightest (if not the most, then at least the most dedicated) people on our side. Even IF the big shots decided to go with packet blocking, there will be ways around it. If not, we'll find ways around it. Nothing like this ever lasts. It's almost foolish of us to get worried over nothing.
Input Password: ***** - sorry, you missed a beat Input Password: ***** -::zzzt:: your timing was a bit off Input Password: ***** - nope, i got at least a 5 ms discrepancy there Input Password: ***** - maybe it's just lag, but that one was WAY off Input Password: ***** - you just don't get it, do you Input Password: ***** - Keystoke rythm confirmed; password incorrect.
At this point the user will be forced to find a new monitor after he puts his keyboard through the one he's using now.
--Forager.
Fight fire with fire ...
on
Napster Wars
·
· Score: 1
It is perfectly evident to me now... this is all one big conspiracy to stop geeks from selecting the specific music we want and force us to pay out the ass for a pathetic CD. I say we fight this conspiracy with one of our own.
Here's how it works. If Napster gets an injunction keeping them from allowing the transfer of copyrighted materials, we (the slashdot community) have a huge download-a-thon and gather every song being offered on the servers. This can be organized by our User #s. Everyone with a numbers 1 - 5000 take songs starting with letters A - F, 5001 - 10000 get G - L, 10001 - 15000 get M - R, and 15001 or higher get S - Z. We save it all to one big iDrive, and make use of one of those nifty IBM Shark Hard-drives to store all the MP3s. Next we just have Jon Katz take it to a remote island in the Pacific and start up a server from there, outside US jurisdiction. Then we just download them from there, and we're all set.
I'd like to see the RIAA find a hole in this one =)
Make yourself heard, and not just by writing your congressman (which is good as well), but also by telling people you know, your family and friends, people you meet, etc our point of view.
*sigh* how often do these efforts work? Seriously? It usually seems to take an organized effort to repel this kind of behavoir on the part of corporations and lawmakers, and sometimes even that doesn't work. If a single, established body tells a congressman that they don't like something, he's more likely to listen than if a thousand individuals tell him the same thing. But even then, how good does it do?
Sometimes I wonder if it really works at all. I get the feeling that we should consider a few other things, in addition to shouting complaints at our congressfolk. Perhaps an organized boycott of some of the more prominent sites, letters to CEOs, congresspersons and other policy-makers (spam them like their mamas never did), and even (*gasp*) suggest solutions to the problems. Instead of a knee-jerk "gee this sucks" reaction, what say someone actually take charge and formulate an intelligent, organized solution.
I built my rig back in September, and it cost me about $2 a meg (show price), but I just upgraded last week and it cost me about $.75 a meg. I'm not questioning that this news is valid, but let's face it folks, the price of RAM changes on a weekly basis, so this isn't that big a shocker. Give it a few weeks and prices will drop again. A few months later it will go back up, and then come down a few weeks after. It happens all the time... what's the big deal? --Forager
Maybe they should stop wearing those ridiculous bow ties. (sorry, but it's true)
--Forager
There's a dragon in my garage ...
on
The Mind of God
·
· Score: 1
"I cannot believe," writes Davies near the end of the book, "that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama. Our involvement is too intimate. The physical species Homo may count for nothing, but the existence of mind in some organism on some planet in the universe is surely a fact of fundamental significance. Through conscious beings the universe has generated self-awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor byproduct of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here."
I must concur with some other/.ers and wonder what is coming over JonKatz... it seems odd to me that he would consider such a statement as the above rational.
To begin with, when a scientist flatly states "I cannot believe" he is stating that, in fact, he is unable to do his job. If he cannot even entertain the possibility that, in fact, random chance and circumstance led to the creation of a species of intelligent (and likely unremarkable) beings, then how can he consider some of the even greater mysteries he may be forced to deal with? Science is not about denying what can or cannot happen; it is about the suspension of disbelief. God has no place in the laboratory, unless the purpose is to prove or disprove his existence. If scientists cannot remain secular, any theory can be put forth that would be sustainable by a simple "because it just is" or "because god made it that way" or "we weren't meant to know that (yet)."
Now, I must inquire, how is our involvement with the universe "intimate"? The "fundamental significance" of our existence is that, in a universe with nearly limitless possibilities, we just happened to come along. What evidence does Davies provide that we are, in fact, "meant to be here" other than the fact that we exist? As poet Stephen Crane once wrote:
A man said to the universe: 'Sir, I exist!' 'However,' replied the universe, 'The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.'
To claim that existence is evidence for meaning is absurd. If homo sapiens has conciousness as a by-product of countless mindless accidents in a chaotic universe, then Davies will never know it, because he has already closed himself off to the possibility that it may, in fact, be true.
If you want to read a book about science theory written by an honestly skeptical, secular scientist, go read something by the late Carl Sagan (I suggest Dragons of Eden, The Demon Haunted World, or Billions and Billions), or if you're looking for secular astrophysics try Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe. But leave this book where it belongs, on the store shelves.
I can just imagine how this would help people with a slight case of motion sickness (like me) start to fix it. Then again, maybe not. I'd hate to have to take Dramamine before playing a nice round of Unreal Tourney (especially if I got gibbed, that would be slightly discomforting).
Should be fun to see where this goes.
--Forager - "Sometimes knowledge alone is not enough." - "Seek and ye shall find."
Slashdot Mirror
-Forager
So what you're saying is, "I don't support censorship. We shouldn't force the companies who make this stuff to stop, but rather beat the living shit out of them until they submit.
On a separate note, I just discovered that my school's T3 is running SurfWatch blocking software (I'm trying to find a workaround to it, we'll see) and it hasn't yet blocked /. (I'm posting this from my programming class now). Anyone wonder how long it will be before they do get around to filtering this out?
It's funny ... 7 years ago, when I was ten and started using a computer, I was treated by both teachers and fellow students like some sort of god for my "advanced knowledge" (my 7th grade mythology project was a simple text-based game I programmed in QBasic). Now I'm treated by teachers as a subversive, like I'm some sort of evil cancer that's going to destroy their sensibilities ... my fellow students still treat me like a god though =)
-Forager
--Forager
-Forager.
There's your true freedom of speech. When racists and homophobes and xenophobes can communicate their beliefs without fear of backlash, that's when the system is actually working FOR the little guy. Don't get me wrong, I really dislike racism, but think about it. If I was a conservative lawmaker, I might be inclined to deny racists freedom to discuss their beliefs in a public forum just because of liability, if not also for moral reasons. Same thing goes for religious lawmakers, and big buisness lawmakers ... and NERD lawmakers (none yet, but it will happen). The fact that ANY issue, quite litterally, can be discussed in a public forum is a TRUE example of freedom of speech; and in that context, I think the internet will--in only a few years more--put a VERY high standard on that freedom. Just some stuff to think about.
-Forager.
-Forager.
Isn't that a defining characteristic of the dictatorships themselves? I don't think you can impose a democratic government; that's not the democratic way of doing things ... just a thought.
-Forager
Almost, but not quite. It's like walking into a house with an infinite number of stereos, stealing one, and saying all of that. If I "steal" a song off of Napster, the artists don't own the song any less; they still have full access to the song and can continue to replicate and sell it (read: rip off) to others even if I steal a copy of it. My stealing it will not actually cost them any money if I wasn't going to buy it in the first place. However, if I steal it and like it, I might just go out and buy it. If not, it's a sale they never would have made anyway. But if I do, then they make money. Truth is, I can't d/l whole albums; I'm on 56k. And for people like me, napster can actually be about sharing and sampling music!
And while the man with infinite stereos (and therefore, infinite potential for profit) can argue that I'm still stealing, I can argue that if he loses nothing by my "stealing" it than it wasn't really theft at all. It is, for all intents and purposes, a victimless crime.
Of the six cds I bought in the last month, 5 of them got bad reviews. I sampled all of them thru napster before I bought them, and I haven't been disappointed by any of them. I won, and the RIAA won. How's that for napster? Was it legal? No. Was it moral? Absolutely.
--Forager.
--Forager.
--Forager
And when it fails miserably, we'll all have the pleasure of watching the media murder space travel, and corporations will be too scared to even consider space flight for another twenty years.
That's the whole point, isn't it? Why is it that these things always get the whole community all fired up and worried? We can fight it, we know this. Yes, it's a bad thing that we HAVE to fight it, but at least we CAN. Finkployd got it right: we have the best and brightest (if not the most, then at least the most dedicated) people on our side. Even IF the big shots decided to go with packet blocking, there will be ways around it. If not, we'll find ways around it. Nothing like this ever lasts. It's almost foolish of us to get worried over nothing.
--Forager.
Input Password:
***** - sorry, you missed a beat
Input Password:
***** -
Input Password:
***** - nope, i got at least a 5 ms discrepancy there
Input Password:
***** - maybe it's just lag, but that one was WAY off
Input Password:
***** - you just don't get it, do you
Input Password:
***** - Keystoke rythm confirmed; password incorrect.
At this point the user will be forced to find a new monitor after he puts his keyboard through the one he's using now.
--Forager.
Here's how it works. If Napster gets an injunction keeping them from allowing the transfer of copyrighted materials, we (the slashdot community) have a huge download-a-thon and gather every song being offered on the servers. This can be organized by our User #s. Everyone with a numbers 1 - 5000 take songs starting with letters A - F, 5001 - 10000 get G - L, 10001 - 15000 get M - R, and 15001 or higher get S - Z. We save it all to one big iDrive, and make use of one of those nifty IBM Shark Hard-drives to store all the MP3s. Next we just have Jon Katz take it to a remote island in the Pacific and start up a server from there, outside US jurisdiction. Then we just download them from there, and we're all set.
I'd like to see the RIAA find a hole in this one =)
--Forager.
*sigh* how often do these efforts work? Seriously? It usually seems to take an organized effort to repel this kind of behavoir on the part of corporations and lawmakers, and sometimes even that doesn't work. If a single, established body tells a congressman that they don't like something, he's more likely to listen than if a thousand individuals tell him the same thing. But even then, how good does it do?
Sometimes I wonder if it really works at all. I get the feeling that we should consider a few other things, in addition to shouting complaints at our congressfolk. Perhaps an organized boycott of some of the more prominent sites, letters to CEOs, congresspersons and other policy-makers (spam them like their mamas never did), and even (*gasp*) suggest solutions to the problems. Instead of a knee-jerk "gee this sucks" reaction, what say someone actually take charge and formulate an intelligent, organized solution.
--Forager
I built my rig back in September, and it cost me about $2 a meg (show price), but I just upgraded last week and it cost me about $.75 a meg. I'm not questioning that this news is valid, but let's face it folks, the price of RAM changes on a weekly basis, so this isn't that big a shocker. Give it a few weeks and prices will drop again. A few months later it will go back up, and then come down a few weeks after. It happens all the time ... what's the big deal?
--Forager
--Forager
I must concur with some other /.ers and wonder what is coming over JonKatz ... it seems odd to me that he would consider such a statement as the above rational.
To begin with, when a scientist flatly states "I cannot believe" he is stating that, in fact, he is unable to do his job. If he cannot even entertain the possibility that, in fact, random chance and circumstance led to the creation of a species of intelligent (and likely unremarkable) beings, then how can he consider some of the even greater mysteries he may be forced to deal with? Science is not about denying what can or cannot happen; it is about the suspension of disbelief. God has no place in the laboratory, unless the purpose is to prove or disprove his existence. If scientists cannot remain secular, any theory can be put forth that would be sustainable by a simple "because it just is" or "because god made it that way" or "we weren't meant to know that (yet)."
Now, I must inquire, how is our involvement with the universe "intimate"? The "fundamental significance" of our existence is that, in a universe with nearly limitless possibilities, we just happened to come along. What evidence does Davies provide that we are, in fact, "meant to be here" other than the fact that we exist? As poet Stephen Crane once wrote:
A man said to the universe:
'Sir, I exist!'
'However,' replied the universe,
'The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.'
To claim that existence is evidence for meaning is absurd. If homo sapiens has conciousness as a by-product of countless mindless accidents in a chaotic universe, then Davies will never know it, because he has already closed himself off to the possibility that it may, in fact, be true.
If you want to read a book about science theory written by an honestly skeptical, secular scientist, go read something by the late Carl Sagan (I suggest Dragons of Eden, The Demon Haunted World, or Billions and Billions), or if you're looking for secular astrophysics try Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe. But leave this book where it belongs, on the store shelves.
--Forager
----------------------------
I can just imagine how this would help people with a slight case of motion sickness (like me) start to fix it. Then again, maybe not. I'd hate to have to take Dramamine before playing a nice round of Unreal Tourney (especially if I got gibbed, that would be slightly discomforting).
Should be fun to see where this goes.
--Forager
- "Sometimes knowledge alone is not enough."
- "Seek and ye shall find."