Produce software for other platforms to get people "hooked on" proprietary file formats. Support the other platforms as good as necessary, (often not as good as the native platform, some features missing, some features don't work the same, perform poorly, not fully compatible, some features just plain broken) then when their data is captive, and unmigratable, fuck em.
Office for Macintosh, IE for just about anything other than Windows, NT for Alpha, PPC, and MIPS.
The ONLY way Microsoft could be trusted (by a Linux shop wishing to adopt.NET for Linux), is if they opened the source, and kept it open, so that if there were any features that were not implemented with full parity, the OSC could fill it in, and if MS breaks something ("accidentally", or otherwise), it can be fixed, and if MS drops support at a later date to force people to migrate to Windows because their data is held captive in a proprietary format, the format can be reverse-engineered and the customer could at least contract a rogue developer to write a conversion tool.
Power drain problems; you can limit the "engine's" drain, but you STILL pay for it in range, and a lot more than you would in a gas-burner, especially when you're talking about heat. Heat in a gas-burner is essentially free, you can run your heater all day long without any hit on your range.
Fuel cells; Burn either methanol, or hydrogen. Methanol still releases CO2, and potentially other hazardous stuff (An ideal consumption of hydrocarbon like methanol, or methane, or octane for that matter, yeilds CO2 and H2O, ideally, but differing mixtures, temperatures yeilds Nitrogen Oxides, and Carbon Monoxide, and sulfur content in todays crappy gasoline mixtures yeilds Sulfur Oxides, so, any burning of fossil fuels, whether it's Methanol in a fuel cell, or gasoline in an internal combustion engine, is going to yeild results that are environmentally undesirable. True, fuel cells have a better potential to control things like sulfur content and inclusion of nitrogen oxides, but they can't eliminate them, and currently, fuel cells are even less efficient.
Hydrogen is never going to be a staple fuel for powering cars. For one, you have the same problems as you would with raw electricity. Hydrogen has to be generated from water, probably seawater, and that generally requires energy input. Electricity. Hydrogen is very difficult to transport, and very unsafe, and even store- hydrogen molecules are so small that it actually leeches through the metal walls of compressed gas cylinders over time. Hydrogen is one of the most explosive substances there is. Even burning hydrogen can yeild some nasty noxious substances. Under ideal circumstances, you get water as a product, but you'll also end up with carbon and nitrogen compounds of hydrogen as well. Cyanide, Ammonia, things like that. Small amounts to be sure, but multiply that by hundreds of millions of cars, and you have another unsavory environmental dilemma.
Ideally, all the problems with hydrogen can be worked out:
generation: genetically engineer a plant that collects sunlight, and splits seawater, collect and refine the minerals for industry, package the pure oxygen and hydrogen in some inert manner, store them together in the fuel cell (eliminating atmospheric contaminants in the burn so you dont end up with Cyanide and Ammonia) -
Now, figure out what happens to our climate with all of that steam our cities are suddenly releasing into the atmosphere, and maybe THEN we'll have a solution.
Sure, high torque is a benefit of electric cars, so those wheels will spin.
However, even your basic very slow electric cars are very expensive compared to gas-burners. But trying to get good performance out of an electric car, you escalate the costs dramatically (of the motors, the batteries, etc.) - and, of course, you pay for that in range.
And on an electric car, everything else will come directly out of your range, where in a gas-burner, the extras are essentially free. Extras like, running your radio, power windows, seat warmers, headlights, heater, etc. Only Air Conditioning noticably impacts performance of a gas-burner.
Then there's the huge maintenance cost of replacing the battery packs. And then the disposal of the battery packs.
As far as the oil companies go, I'm sure they'd be just as happy to see everyone convert to electricity, because you still have to generate the electricity by burning fossil fuels, and oil companies aren't just about drilling a hole and sitting back pumping money out of the ground. There's infrastructure, trucks, tankers, distribution networks, drilling equipment, platforms, etc. All of that can be put to good use in an economy that's not based on oil. I'm sure a good portion of that can be adapted to a network for servicing electric autos as well.
It's not that this problem is new, or potentially really bad on it's own, but it's that they're afraid that as soon as hackers post tools to 2600, all the script kiddies will go out and exploit it, because currently, nobody's hitting this one, because it's too difficult for most people to grasp.
Or maybe it's a vieled attempt by Microsoft to discredit TCP/IP so they can get the whole world to switch back to NetBEUI and WINS.
Re:What they won't show, perhaps ever...
on
15 Minutes
·
· Score: 2
Arnold Shwartzenreagan's film "The Running Man" took that to extreme. A game show, where convicted felons fight for survival against pro-wrestler-like gladiators.
A laff-a-minute.
And Arnold's considering running for Gov. of California.
ha, don't include CNN in the category of "news in one shot without all the BS that usually gets indroducted" (introduced).
CNN ceased being that a long time ago. Between sports (WTF? I want to watch news, if you want sports, go fukin watch ESPN for fuck's sake!) - and Jeannie Moos (love that bitch, but really, is it NEWS? stop wasting my time!), and nearly nonstop commercials, you can't just tune into CNN and watch 10 minutes and get any useful information anymore. For that matter, they could omit the weather too, people can go watch the Weather Channel for that. Why doesn't anyone do JUST NEWS anymore?
What's funny is in every other English speaking nation in the world, "Liberal" means the opposite of what it does in the US. "Liberal" means "to relax regulations", particulary on business and industry. (I believe; to aleviate confusion, the term "neoliberal" is coming into vogue, at least with the British people I've talked to.)
Around the time of the Great Depression, the term "liberal" was a dirty word, because lots of people were blaming the liberals, that is, pro-industry people, on causing the depression, and the labor and environmental, and financial abuses of the "robber barons" and super-rich. (whether that was true or not, I don't want to get into that - there were likely many causes to the Depression that acted in concert, and all played a role in lengthening and deepening the Depression).
It kind of makes me barf, how the sound principles of strong regulation of certain aspects of business have been slapped with the label of "liberal". Where the fuck did that come from? Pro-industry republicans trying to avoid that label themselves. What does "conservative" mean anyway? That they are into "conservation"? Bah!
And as far as abandoning Darwinistic principals, Evolution is a property of NATURE. Man may be a result of that process, but is no longer a part of it, because we have changed out environment to suit ourselves, rather than adapting to our environment. Otherwise, all you people out there who have glasses, contact lenses or laser surgery, immediately sterilize yourselves, no sense in polluting the gene pool with defective traits!
Re:Americans turning to british television
on
15 Minutes
·
· Score: 2
That's what we need the 500 channels for, rebroadcasting this old good material. Is that what they're used for? More often NOT than SO, unfortunately.
I'm almost *done* with the Simpsons. They made the joke a few episodes ago that TV shows that have "run their course" and who have writers that are tired of cranking out the same material over and over should just end, and be put out of their misery (I think it was at the retirement of Crusty the Clown). Now, Futurama is still relatively fresh. Voyager got stale after 3 episodes. X-Files is a walking zombie this season, and I was pleasantly suprised when I watched the Lone Gunmen last night - it sucked. Hooray, I can finally get my Sunday nights back! Maybe I'll read. Or take up posting to/. on Sunday nights.
Re:American Television - Killed by commerce
on
15 Minutes
·
· Score: 2
I have to agree with this. Of 500 channels of Satellite TV, I have to say one of the stations that offers consistently best programming is BBC.
But the problem is not that there are too many channels, it's that audiences aren't discriminating enough. Too much emphasis choice-wise is placed on the subconsious fear that someone will be in a social situation where the last episode of "Ally McBeal" is discussed, and not having seen it, they'll be "not cool". So people watch it, no matter how bad it is, commercial revenue happens, and that gives the show a reason to survive. In other words, the Darwinistic "free market principles" are broken here somehow. In my opinion, it's merely an education problem. The American consumer has NOT been educated to be discriminating. I think that's partially a problem of government complicity (because the government educates us, right?) and partially because being a discriminating consumer is no longer a necessary survival trait in the current economic climate. Things are SO good here, that it's okay to get ripped off a few times. Especially in the consumption of entertainment.
The generation that came from the Great Depression had to learn to look out for scams and poor value. This generation has to look out for the latest fad. They're more afraid of being culturally "out" (not cool) than of making a bad purchasing decision and getting financially raped.
Obviously total bullshit because Hawaii itself is less than 5 million years old!!! (The oldest islands in the chain are about 5 million years, Hawaii is the youngest - )
"The real purpose of evolution" (hm. didn't know that natural processes had a "purpose") "is to create sentient engropy machines to change matter from one form to another."
So, basically, I'm here to convert beer into urine? Cool. I'm ready to go to church now!
Your other assertion: monotheism does not provide even a reasonable analogy of nature and reality - that depends on your interpretation. Christianity can be very existentialist.
Oops, I did it again.
Downloaded your song.
And listened for free -
ooh baby baby,
you think I'm a putz,
that I'll pay 20 bucks,
I'm not that gullible.
Hey Taco!
Hows this for opposing your dogmatic mythological beliefs?
Pi != 3.
(referring to the biblical passage where Pi is defined as 3, thereby proving that the Bible contains at least one false statement, unless that guy's grain silo was a hexagon, which is not backed up by archeological evidence)
On MY property, yes, nobody else has a right to privacy or anonymity.
In PUBLIC property or forums, a person SHOULD have the right to anonymity. Whistleblowers and such have been killed.
I don't have a lot of details, it goes along with the history of the OLD Freemason organization, but some former Mason, back in the early 19th century, tried to publish a book containing secrets about the organization; secrets about a political power block, composed of Masonic members who were also senators and governors and judges. The power block was extensive, and you might say that they pretty much had control of the United States at that time.
Then, some unfortunate things started happening to this person, I believe attempts at his life, his house burned down, etc. When he tried to pursue justice on the matter in court, it was thrown out, the judge was a mason, the jurists were masons, the police were masons, etc. Very similar situation to people who tried to go up against the KKK. Somehow, he was able to get the word out, and there was a huge public backlash against the masons, and an Anti Mason political party was formed aimed (successfully) at breaking the political influence of the Masons in American politics.
Anonymity is absolutely necessary to maintain freedom against, not to sound overly dramatic, but large, powerful, secret organizations. It happens in real life, and it's a real threat.
Stalin and Pol Pot were Communists, and as such Atheists. (the Communist philosophy holds that religions are a burden on humanity, and serve no purpose other than to keep the poor people down and promote social hierarchy and inequality). The people that were murdered were murdered in the interest of furthering the cause of Communism, therefore, indirectly Atheism.
While I agree, that the tennets and beliefs of Atheists don't direct the followers to murder fellow human beings, the philosophy does not have clean hands, as far as attrocities goes.
In other words, I argue, that ANY philosophy, no matter how well intended, can be twisted to justify murder. Except maybe Agnosticism (if you're Agnostic, you don't care, and if you don't care, what's worth killing someone over?). My point is, don't blame Christianity (or any other religion) for the bad things humans do.
I thought that Scientology also had lost their tax exempt status in the US at one point, and then regained it, or there was a serious challenge to that status - and the overall rhetoric at the time was that Republican administrations were generally less likely to favor Co$, while Democrats rolled out the red carpet (due to the large campaign contributions from Co$, and other Hollywood actors and organizations).
He's talking about Freemasonry from BEFORE it was reformed. Back in the 1800's there was a US political party called the Anti Masons, whose platform was removing Masonic influence from the American political process, such was the public outcry and backlash when the Masons unsuccessfully attempted to silence a former member who spoke out against the organization, and it's influences on American politics in that era.
After that, the Freemasons pretty much died out or went underground for around 50 years, and resurfaced as a reformed organization, less secret and dedicated mostly for charity work and precision go-kart driving.
Walt Disney? Sonny Bono? These are names that keep coming up in this whole Copyright law abuse debate. . . and to read that they were also involved with Scientology? It's starting to sound like a conspiracy alright. ..
Because we're talking about a revolution here. Computers and Information Technology have brought a means with the potential to change human society in ways most people haven't even thought about.
It validates the notion that just about everything can be reduced to "information", and that information can be copied, stored and transmitted very cheaply and quickly, from any place in the world to any other. It challenges the human notions of physical property. It's particularly relevant in light of the American concept of "Free Speech". If Speech is Information, and Speech is Free, then Information should be free. But IP Laws, and Copyrights, and Trade Secrets are running counter to that notion.
Computers, Information, represent a revolution, a tidal change in a given direction. Hope for the future. People empowered when they were mere slaves before. IP Laws are counterrevolutionary. They represent the status quo. Resistance to the changes that could take place. We've seen the wonderful potential of the internet years ago, when it first started. Theoretically, you could get ANYTHING. But when it started to actually become technically feasible to get Copyrighted music on line, freely, and the bean counters started to get nervous, they knew they had to get their lawyers on the horn to start shoveling that toothpaste back into the tube. As a consequence, the internet may very well evolve into a vast collection of "this is my car, this is my dog" pages, pr0n, and Flash animations.
I think that's stuff that matters. And Nerds, being the custodians of the machines that make this revolution possible - probably give a crap what happens to the internet, and the coming revolution.
Again, I submit to you, Stalin, was a Communist, and an essential element in the Communist philosophy is that religion is inherently a bad thing, the Science of man tells us that there is no God, the bible is false, and religion is nothing more than an evil plot to keep the masses "down", and therefore religion must not only be outlawed but vigorously eliminated, because it is the enemy of mankind.
Sure, there are interpretations of Communism that don't think that way. But let me note the persecution of the Falun Gong in China as a modern-day example.
Sure, what's driving the anti-religious zeal is political control, perhaps "payback" for making "the people" poor slaves for the past thousands of years, but in the end, there's no basic moral justification in the Athiest religion that says that "life is sacred" or has a value above other things. Not that having a moral justification has saved the diety-based religions from making the same mistakes (shouting about how terrible it is to kill a human being, then killing human beings).
Slashdot Mirror
Ah yes, Java, Office, IE, NT...
.NET for Linux), is if they opened the source, and kept it open, so that if there were any features that were not implemented with full parity, the OSC could fill it in, and if MS breaks something ("accidentally", or otherwise), it can be fixed, and if MS drops support at a later date to force people to migrate to Windows because their data is held captive in a proprietary format, the format can be reverse-engineered and the customer could at least contract a rogue developer to write a conversion tool.
.NET.
Produce software for other platforms to get people "hooked on" proprietary file formats. Support the other platforms as good as necessary, (often not as good as the native platform, some features missing, some features don't work the same, perform poorly, not fully compatible, some features just plain broken) then when their data is captive, and unmigratable, fuck em.
Office for Macintosh, IE for just about anything other than Windows, NT for Alpha, PPC, and MIPS.
The ONLY way Microsoft could be trusted (by a Linux shop wishing to adopt
But it's not likely we'll see an open
I can't believe people still fall for that crap.
Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?
Power drain problems; you can limit the "engine's" drain, but you STILL pay for it in range, and a lot more than you would in a gas-burner, especially when you're talking about heat. Heat in a gas-burner is essentially free, you can run your heater all day long without any hit on your range.
Fuel cells; Burn either methanol, or hydrogen. Methanol still releases CO2, and potentially other hazardous stuff (An ideal consumption of hydrocarbon like methanol, or methane, or octane for that matter, yeilds CO2 and H2O, ideally, but differing mixtures, temperatures yeilds Nitrogen Oxides, and Carbon Monoxide, and sulfur content in todays crappy gasoline mixtures yeilds Sulfur Oxides, so, any burning of fossil fuels, whether it's Methanol in a fuel cell, or gasoline in an internal combustion engine, is going to yeild results that are environmentally undesirable. True, fuel cells have a better potential to control things like sulfur content and inclusion of nitrogen oxides, but they can't eliminate them, and currently, fuel cells are even less efficient.
Hydrogen is never going to be a staple fuel for powering cars. For one, you have the same problems as you would with raw electricity. Hydrogen has to be generated from water, probably seawater, and that generally requires energy input. Electricity. Hydrogen is very difficult to transport, and very unsafe, and even store- hydrogen molecules are so small that it actually leeches through the metal walls of compressed gas cylinders over time. Hydrogen is one of the most explosive substances there is. Even burning hydrogen can yeild some nasty noxious substances. Under ideal circumstances, you get water as a product, but you'll also end up with carbon and nitrogen compounds of hydrogen as well. Cyanide, Ammonia, things like that. Small amounts to be sure, but multiply that by hundreds of millions of cars, and you have another unsavory environmental dilemma.
Ideally, all the problems with hydrogen can be worked out:
generation: genetically engineer a plant that collects sunlight, and splits seawater, collect and refine the minerals for industry, package the pure oxygen and hydrogen in some inert manner, store them together in the fuel cell (eliminating atmospheric contaminants in the burn so you dont end up with Cyanide and Ammonia) -
Now, figure out what happens to our climate with all of that steam our cities are suddenly releasing into the atmosphere, and maybe THEN we'll have a solution.
Sure, high torque is a benefit of electric cars, so those wheels will spin.
However, even your basic very slow electric cars are very expensive compared to gas-burners. But trying to get good performance out of an electric car, you escalate the costs dramatically (of the motors, the batteries, etc.) - and, of course, you pay for that in range.
And on an electric car, everything else will come directly out of your range, where in a gas-burner, the extras are essentially free. Extras like, running your radio, power windows, seat warmers, headlights, heater, etc. Only Air Conditioning noticably impacts performance of a gas-burner.
Then there's the huge maintenance cost of replacing the battery packs. And then the disposal of the battery packs.
As far as the oil companies go, I'm sure they'd be just as happy to see everyone convert to electricity, because you still have to generate the electricity by burning fossil fuels, and oil companies aren't just about drilling a hole and sitting back pumping money out of the ground. There's infrastructure, trucks, tankers, distribution networks, drilling equipment, platforms, etc. All of that can be put to good use in an economy that's not based on oil. I'm sure a good portion of that can be adapted to a network for servicing electric autos as well.
I was using 2600 (as opposed to other sites like l0pht or what have you) as a tool to indicate the cluelessness of the writer of the article.
It's not that this problem is new, or potentially really bad on it's own, but it's that they're afraid that as soon as hackers post tools to 2600, all the script kiddies will go out and exploit it, because currently, nobody's hitting this one, because it's too difficult for most people to grasp.
Or maybe it's a vieled attempt by Microsoft to discredit TCP/IP so they can get the whole world to switch back to NetBEUI and WINS.
Ted Turner's a Jew?
Arnold Shwartzenreagan's film "The Running Man" took that to extreme. A game show, where convicted felons fight for survival against pro-wrestler-like gladiators.
A laff-a-minute.
And Arnold's considering running for Gov. of California.
ha, don't include CNN in the category of "news in one shot without all the BS that usually gets indroducted" (introduced).
/..
CNN ceased being that a long time ago. Between sports (WTF? I want to watch news, if you want sports, go fukin watch ESPN for fuck's sake!) - and Jeannie Moos (love that bitch, but really, is it NEWS? stop wasting my time!), and nearly nonstop commercials, you can't just tune into CNN and watch 10 minutes and get any useful information anymore. For that matter, they could omit the weather too, people can go watch the Weather Channel for that. Why doesn't anyone do JUST NEWS anymore?
That is why I get my news from Yahoo, and
What's funny is in every other English speaking nation in the world, "Liberal" means the opposite of what it does in the US. "Liberal" means "to relax regulations", particulary on business and industry. (I believe; to aleviate confusion, the term "neoliberal" is coming into vogue, at least with the British people I've talked to.)
Around the time of the Great Depression, the term "liberal" was a dirty word, because lots of people were blaming the liberals, that is, pro-industry people, on causing the depression, and the labor and environmental, and financial abuses of the "robber barons" and super-rich. (whether that was true or not, I don't want to get into that - there were likely many causes to the Depression that acted in concert, and all played a role in lengthening and deepening the Depression).
It kind of makes me barf, how the sound principles of strong regulation of certain aspects of business have been slapped with the label of "liberal". Where the fuck did that come from? Pro-industry republicans trying to avoid that label themselves. What does "conservative" mean anyway? That they are into "conservation"? Bah!
And as far as abandoning Darwinistic principals, Evolution is a property of NATURE. Man may be a result of that process, but is no longer a part of it, because we have changed out environment to suit ourselves, rather than adapting to our environment. Otherwise, all you people out there who have glasses, contact lenses or laser surgery, immediately sterilize yourselves, no sense in polluting the gene pool with defective traits!
That's what we need the 500 channels for, rebroadcasting this old good material. Is that what they're used for? More often NOT than SO, unfortunately.
/. on Sunday nights.
I'm almost *done* with the Simpsons. They made the joke a few episodes ago that TV shows that have "run their course" and who have writers that are tired of cranking out the same material over and over should just end, and be put out of their misery (I think it was at the retirement of Crusty the Clown). Now, Futurama is still relatively fresh. Voyager got stale after 3 episodes. X-Files is a walking zombie this season, and I was pleasantly suprised when I watched the Lone Gunmen last night - it sucked. Hooray, I can finally get my Sunday nights back! Maybe I'll read. Or take up posting to
I have to agree with this. Of 500 channels of Satellite TV, I have to say one of the stations that offers consistently best programming is BBC.
But the problem is not that there are too many channels, it's that audiences aren't discriminating enough. Too much emphasis choice-wise is placed on the subconsious fear that someone will be in a social situation where the last episode of "Ally McBeal" is discussed, and not having seen it, they'll be "not cool". So people watch it, no matter how bad it is, commercial revenue happens, and that gives the show a reason to survive. In other words, the Darwinistic "free market principles" are broken here somehow. In my opinion, it's merely an education problem. The American consumer has NOT been educated to be discriminating. I think that's partially a problem of government complicity (because the government educates us, right?) and partially because being a discriminating consumer is no longer a necessary survival trait in the current economic climate. Things are SO good here, that it's okay to get ripped off a few times. Especially in the consumption of entertainment.
The generation that came from the Great Depression had to learn to look out for scams and poor value. This generation has to look out for the latest fad. They're more afraid of being culturally "out" (not cool) than of making a bad purchasing decision and getting financially raped.
75 million years?
Obviously total bullshit because Hawaii itself is less than 5 million years old!!! (The oldest islands in the chain are about 5 million years, Hawaii is the youngest - )
"The real purpose of evolution" (hm. didn't know that natural processes had a "purpose") "is to create sentient engropy machines to change matter from one form to another."
So, basically, I'm here to convert beer into urine? Cool. I'm ready to go to church now!
Your other assertion: monotheism does not provide even a reasonable analogy of nature and reality - that depends on your interpretation. Christianity can be very existentialist.
Oops, I did it again.
Downloaded your song.
And listened for free -
ooh baby baby,
you think I'm a putz,
that I'll pay 20 bucks,
I'm not that gullible.
Hey Taco!
Hows this for opposing your dogmatic mythological beliefs?
Pi != 3.
(referring to the biblical passage where Pi is defined as 3, thereby proving that the Bible contains at least one false statement, unless that guy's grain silo was a hexagon, which is not backed up by archeological evidence)
On MY property, yes, nobody else has a right to privacy or anonymity.
In PUBLIC property or forums, a person SHOULD have the right to anonymity. Whistleblowers and such have been killed.
I don't have a lot of details, it goes along with the history of the OLD Freemason organization, but some former Mason, back in the early 19th century, tried to publish a book containing secrets about the organization; secrets about a political power block, composed of Masonic members who were also senators and governors and judges. The power block was extensive, and you might say that they pretty much had control of the United States at that time.
Then, some unfortunate things started happening to this person, I believe attempts at his life, his house burned down, etc. When he tried to pursue justice on the matter in court, it was thrown out, the judge was a mason, the jurists were masons, the police were masons, etc. Very similar situation to people who tried to go up against the KKK. Somehow, he was able to get the word out, and there was a huge public backlash against the masons, and an Anti Mason political party was formed aimed (successfully) at breaking the political influence of the Masons in American politics.
Anonymity is absolutely necessary to maintain freedom against, not to sound overly dramatic, but large, powerful, secret organizations. It happens in real life, and it's a real threat.
Stalin and Pol Pot were Communists, and as such Atheists. (the Communist philosophy holds that religions are a burden on humanity, and serve no purpose other than to keep the poor people down and promote social hierarchy and inequality). The people that were murdered were murdered in the interest of furthering the cause of Communism, therefore, indirectly Atheism.
While I agree, that the tennets and beliefs of Atheists don't direct the followers to murder fellow human beings, the philosophy does not have clean hands, as far as attrocities goes.
In other words, I argue, that ANY philosophy, no matter how well intended, can be twisted to justify murder. Except maybe Agnosticism (if you're Agnostic, you don't care, and if you don't care, what's worth killing someone over?). My point is, don't blame Christianity (or any other religion) for the bad things humans do.
you mispelled "evel" because I was thinking bad thoughts about you.
I thought that Scientology also had lost their tax exempt status in the US at one point, and then regained it, or there was a serious challenge to that status - and the overall rhetoric at the time was that Republican administrations were generally less likely to favor Co$, while Democrats rolled out the red carpet (due to the large campaign contributions from Co$, and other Hollywood actors and organizations).
He's talking about Freemasonry from BEFORE it was reformed. Back in the 1800's there was a US political party called the Anti Masons, whose platform was removing Masonic influence from the American political process, such was the public outcry and backlash when the Masons unsuccessfully attempted to silence a former member who spoke out against the organization, and it's influences on American politics in that era.
After that, the Freemasons pretty much died out or went underground for around 50 years, and resurfaced as a reformed organization, less secret and dedicated mostly for charity work and precision go-kart driving.
That's starting to sound SCARY.
.
Walt Disney? Sonny Bono? These are names that keep coming up in this whole Copyright law abuse debate. . . and to read that they were also involved with Scientology? It's starting to sound like a conspiracy alright. .
Being successful in Hollywood has a lot more to do with having a well-connected agent than anything else.
This is stuff that matters.
Because we're talking about a revolution here. Computers and Information Technology have brought a means with the potential to change human society in ways most people haven't even thought about.
It validates the notion that just about everything can be reduced to "information", and that information can be copied, stored and transmitted very cheaply and quickly, from any place in the world to any other. It challenges the human notions of physical property. It's particularly relevant in light of the American concept of "Free Speech". If Speech is Information, and Speech is Free, then Information should be free. But IP Laws, and Copyrights, and Trade Secrets are running counter to that notion.
Computers, Information, represent a revolution, a tidal change in a given direction. Hope for the future. People empowered when they were mere slaves before. IP Laws are counterrevolutionary. They represent the status quo. Resistance to the changes that could take place. We've seen the wonderful potential of the internet years ago, when it first started. Theoretically, you could get ANYTHING. But when it started to actually become technically feasible to get Copyrighted music on line, freely, and the bean counters started to get nervous, they knew they had to get their lawyers on the horn to start shoveling that toothpaste back into the tube. As a consequence, the internet may very well evolve into a vast collection of "this is my car, this is my dog" pages, pr0n, and Flash animations.
I think that's stuff that matters. And Nerds, being the custodians of the machines that make this revolution possible - probably give a crap what happens to the internet, and the coming revolution.
Again, I submit to you, Stalin, was a Communist, and an essential element in the Communist philosophy is that religion is inherently a bad thing, the Science of man tells us that there is no God, the bible is false, and religion is nothing more than an evil plot to keep the masses "down", and therefore religion must not only be outlawed but vigorously eliminated, because it is the enemy of mankind.
Sure, there are interpretations of Communism that don't think that way. But let me note the persecution of the Falun Gong in China as a modern-day example.
Sure, what's driving the anti-religious zeal is political control, perhaps "payback" for making "the people" poor slaves for the past thousands of years, but in the end, there's no basic moral justification in the Athiest religion that says that "life is sacred" or has a value above other things. Not that having a moral justification has saved the diety-based religions from making the same mistakes (shouting about how terrible it is to kill a human being, then killing human beings).