I've been saying this for YEARS. Copyright only exists to protect and encourage the arts and sciences. There is no intrisic moral value in copyright.
Given the nature of modern technology, and the low cost of modern distribution (electronically), we can safely abolish the concept of copyright.
Politics is the difficult business of allocating resources effectively. In this case, the happiness of the many (public, and, I would argure, the artists (and wannabe artists)), outweight the needs of the few (RIAA, big 4 record companies).
I was curious, and tried their website, which is much better than it used to be, now it is like nvidias.
Lets see-----Graphic Drivers, Linux, 8500.
Funny, their are drivers there. Sure, they are a little old, but whatever, ATI always has old drivers on their site.
Then, lets see. Where I usually go---
Fire GL, Linux, FireGL 8800
The new drivers---> Both packages above are the fglrx drivers. Both unofficially are supported on the Radeon 8500 through the Radeon 9700.
Get a life, people. ATI driver support has not changed. They have always unofficially supported linux in this fashion--->if their drivers cost you $10,000 in hardware, thats your problem. I'll bet that NVIDIA's 'official' support, however, has a liability wavier associated with. The only difference is that NVIDIA supports their card, if their driver fries it, while ATI will not.
But, I've never seen any device's driver fry the hardware from its manufacturer.
Besides, which of these two manufactures releases the specs on their cards? Which of these two manufactures has active open source drivers in development? ATI has been MUCH better to the linux community than Nvidia.
Even if their hardware/drivers are slightly buggier.
I can think of all sorts of variations on this experiment. I really want one of these machines!
For example, do the experiment they did on one group. Do a control group. Then do a pre-treatment on both groups (control and experimental). Does the machine actually cause you to learn faster? Can the author actually draw at a vastly superior level now that he not connected to the machine?
Or does the machine provide temporary amplification. I imagine that it is something in between. Often, when I have studied a problem, I gain a huge amount of insight into it. Afterwards, I look back upon the work I have done, am *very* surprised that it turned out so well, but end up at a higher level of skill overall.
If this machine is anything like the way it is described, I'll trade a kidney for one.
Either IBM will absolutely destroy their case, quickly (This is the option they will choose if they really want to support linux), or IBM will file more paperwork than the laweyers at SCO will ever be able to read and understand (IBM's first legal brief against the Justice Department in the 70's was 56 4-drawer filing cabinets).
Option 2 is the safer option--SCO just can't handle that kind of legal pressure and commitment.
On the other hand, I'm sure that IBM upper-management understands that the longer this lawsuit drags on, the more it will affect linux, and to a lesser degree, AIX
If IBM's upper management really has a lot of faith in their linux development strategy (which, I suspect they do), I expect IBM to quickly smash SCO by brandishing patents suggesting SCO could never have owned the underlying technologies behind Unix.
I don't think this case is about a copyright issue. This is about SCO having the rights to all derivative UNIX works. I suspect that IBM is going to prove it has the necessary patents to claim ownership of lots of the technologies within UNIX.
Interestingly enough, Novell never transferred UNIX patents to SCO, just trademarks, and possibly copyrights. SCO probably has no idea what IBM is going to hit them with.
This is especially funny, because IBM has already had a technical/legal board review the transfer of RCU code to linux under the GPL---I suspect they already have a document saying something like this:
A. We can do this because we own it;
B. And if we don't actually own it, its protected by these patents;
C. And if we can't protect it using those patents, we can show that we created a similar implementation first, on a different system.
D. And even if all that is irrelevant, we control the original sequent contract licenesing RCU to SCO---We revoke SCO's license to RCU, for X legal reasons.
IBM's case may be so strong in this position that it makes NO sense for them to say anything about it. Wait till it comes to court, don't give SCO anytime to pullout (probably too late for that now), countersue SCO, and allow SCO to settle by assigning all rights on UNIX to IBM.
If SCO doesn't settle, I suspect that IBM will try and take all of those rights, or have those rights rendered void. And they'll win, either based on: a)the weakness in SCOs case---('Copyrights! Trade Secrets! We never really actually sold Linux! They are terrorists anyways!') b) the strength of IBM's patent portfolio, c) Or the courts unwillingness to acknowledge the bizarre series of contract transfers away from AT&T-->I suspect that any judge (and ESPECIALLY a jury) will be totally unwilling to buy SCO's 'We are the mother of all things UNIX' mentaility. Even if there are some minor contractual quibbles, SCO just doesn't have much to do with the UNIX world. SCO is a tiny little company, attempting to destroy a huge industry of behemoths, a lot of which have sold systems to the federal government. Who has more credibility regarding UNIX---Big Blue, or Caldera a.k.a. SCO? This ownership of all derivative works business would have been a stretch if AT&T had tried it. For a small linux distributor to try it? HAHAHAHAHAHA
I read the news as much as the next guy. I'm just as interested in this case as the next guy. But I'm no longer mad at SCO, and I'm not even willing to be foaming at the mouth. SCO has clearly stopped targetting the linux community---thats too hard. Instead they've targetted IBM, for trade secret infringment.
It's like some random idiot on the street suing the government for rights on the legislative process because he was related to some legal philosopher from the 1600s. IBM's internal divisions have already covered this issue, at length, in triplicate, with review, ad infinitum.
It's really just hopeless.
BTW: To all you SCO engineers out there, you guys should have some sort of backup plan. Like, maybe, saving evidence of managment's activites, so when the grand jury
Redhat, Mandrake, Debian et al. have legal teams, I believe.
GNU, and FSF, should care what is going on with this case.
OSI has something to say too.
In reaction to posts like this one linux distributors should sue SCO, asking for the following: A. Injunction against scaring potential and existing customers away from linux, using threatening letters. B. Disclosure of offending lines of code. C. Bar SCO from legally threatening ANY Linux user under the grounds of copyright infringment, since SCO has already released all the code under the GPL (and continues to do so, by disseminating linux-kernel-source from their website).
It seems to me that this should be a simple process. Indeed, if I wasn't dead broke, I might decide to file a case like this myself.
In addition, why not fork SCO's Caldera kernel-> Isn't their custom kernel usuable as 'linux'? Just take their kernel, strip out the SCO bits, add our own, and call in the SCO-lawsuit-protected kernel--after all, you got it from SCO, and they have agreed not to prosecute people using their code.
Infact, this last option seems to be an ace in the hole for us. Unless I'm wrong, in which case someone should explain why to me.
Sure, its illegal. But I don't think that it can be stopped.
Disclamer: I DO NOT have the balls to do this. I wish I did. Maybe if I lived in another country. My puny little balls make me fearful of nearly every legal risk. I don't speed, and I don't disclose NDA protected material. I won't sign this NDA, 'cause I'm scared like a little dog.
What if, say, John Doe, signed the NDA, got the documentation, scanned it in, removed all personally identifiable charateristics, and then uploaded it to freenet?
Just a thought. Any of you black hats with big, titanium bullet-proof balls willing to do this? (Note, these are figurative balls. I know MANY females with bigger balls than me. This is not designed to be misogynistic. Any flames will end up burning my balls, and won't be responded to, because I'll be cradling my balls in ice )
Specifically trouble-making types---seems like you could cause SCO a lot of pain and trouble by pulling a stunt like this, and if you were a lot smarter than me (maybe not that much smarter), you could do it and not get caught.
I think it is helpful to evalute this from IBM's perspective.
As I see it, there are three possibilities.
A. IBM screwed up. They released stuff from their SCO license into Linux. Oops.
B. IBM didn't screw up. They have all the evidence (remember, they have BOTH SCO's source, and Linux's source). They don't care what SCO says, because they already HAVE all the evidence. They can't release the evidence, because that would then violate their licensing agreement with SCO, but they can sure as hell prepare they legal briefs now.
C. IBM didn't screw up. They are in cahoots with SCO, and are doing this to screw linux.
Given IBM's investment in Linux, and its contribution to the kernel, and other software, I'm guessing that C is highly unlikely.
I dunno, A seems unlikely to me too. If A were the case, an IBM had a big problem on their hands, I think that as soon as SCO threaten them, they would have rapidly been able to determine that SCO's claim has some legitimacy, and bought them out immediately. After all, they have plenty of cash.
That leaves B. Someone in the IBM legal department is of the opinion that they have a REALLY strong case. Someone on the board of directors decided it would be better for their credibility if they blow SCO out of the water.
Remember, IBM can see both sides of the table here. They hold all the cards. They don't need to get SCO to show them the evidence, so they didn't even have to ask.
They knew they would win from day one. You can't bluff when the other guy sees your cards.
Re:SCO still packs a punch?
on
SCO SCO SCO!
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· Score: 3, Insightful
First of all, jericho is right, it would reward them.
Second of all, I'll derive MUCH more satisfaction watching a judge laugh at them.
German courts have already slapped them in the face.
I believe that IBM can, and will, continue to ignore them, and will tear them to pieces in court.
Remember, IBM has all of the evidence. They have the SCO source code, and the Linux kernel code.
THEY ALREADY NOW IF THEY CAN WIN THEIR CASE. You can bet MILLIONS that IBM has legal and technical teams reviewing that code, letter by letter.
IBM can't release the evidence, because then they would be in violation. But they have a license to prepare the legal briefs! This case was lost (by SCO), before it was filed.
SCO's own linux distribution was hazadarous to them. They did something stupid with it. They continued to distribute it.
SCO is making allegations that are OFFENSIVE to members of the opensource community that have contributed to the linux kernel, and to the 'linux community', whatever they may be.
The 'linux community', at large, tries pretty hard to avoid issues like this, and for the most part, if you had any familiarity with IP cases, you would understand SCO is acting as if it was bluffing.
The sancity of their trade secrets has already been violated. If you assume that their claims are correct, than they have already released their own code (unknownigly), in their custom kernels for the caldera distribution.
Generally, when a company has a strong IP case, they parade the evidence all over the place, in order to convince the other to settle quickly---after all, settling now is cheaper than settling later, 'cause settling after a court order will cost you court costs as well.
On the other hand, if you are bluffing, you DON'T release your evidence, because you want someone to buy you out, to shut you up. You drag out precedings, and make ridiculous, slanderous claims, in order to upset your enemies, and you harass their customers, so that other corporations will buy you out, 'cause all the trouble you are making is costing them more money than the buy out costs.
This second scenario seems far more likely. Especially given that SCO had to close its German operations because a German court ordered it to release its evidence regarding IP violations, or cease threatening to sue. In Germany, you aren't allowed to threaten to sue without evidence. You have to put up, or shut up. SCO shut up.
This has no legal precedence for U.S. legal preceedings, but it does say something about SCO's sinceritity. Why didn't they just give the evidence to German courts?
Because they don't have it. Because the case is BS. Because SCO is an incompentent company. It was incompentent when it was called caldera. It has nothing to do with the intellectual roots of unix.
Sad to say, but I think Michael's right. SCO's board of directors are a bunch of immature assholes, and you have very little grasp of the situation. This isn't just about a fair trial before being stoned to death. This is about the last gasp of a shitty company, who has spread FUD to all kinds of customers, of customers of companies like MY OWN. Telling them they shouldn't be adopting my product.
Without evidence. Merely asserting my product has bizarre, unknown risks associtated with it. Its as is I e-mailed all Microsoft customers, saying "I wouldn't use windows, because they use stolen IP, and I will prove this as some point in the future".
This is NOT fair. Legally required to protect their secrets? You have no idea what you are talking about it.
Its unforunately not 'free', its a windows app, but it does its job pretty well. Its handles everything by itself, but it is a major resources hog, and slow to boot. This is on an Athlon XP 1800+, with 256 mb ram. I can't get it to record natively to xvid or divx without dropping loads of frames, so I record to mpeg-2
When exam week is over, I plan getting Freevo to work properly. It has lots of promise.
If your really ambitious, you can run Freevo on your xbox:)
When I started trying to get this project on my 'nux box, I figured I would need a disgusting set of shell scripts. So I went with ShowShifter, because at the time Freevo was not around.
Freevo has most of the showshifter functionality now, though.
This probably wasn't the answer you were looking for, 'cause its really not hardcore geek enough, but it works
I don't really understand why? I own an snes, a playstation, an nes, and an xbox.
I've got all my cd's ripped to mp3s on my home system, and I've got most of my dvds ripped to high quality vbr xvid.
Now, I can play all of this content through my xbox.
Nearly all of it, ('cept the playstation stuff) is shared through samba, and I can access it all through a convient, on screen menu system.
I also have in-game saves for all of my games, and it is really nice to be able to pick a playlist of a GENRE of movie you might like, and then push random.
Or TV shows, for that matter. I enjoy pulling up my Dune mini-series, or HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
All without swapping discs.
I haven't upgraded the harddrive in my xbox, but thats not a concern. I can either a) share what I need over the LAN, or b)burn it to DVD-RW, and play it that way.
What's the average playstation game size? 200 megs? 400 megs? Lets say 300, though I'm sure its probably less than that (I know that there are games that fill discs, or even span discs, but the vast majority of them don't). So 300 megs, I can fit maybe 10-12 games on a DVD-R. And if they gzip down at all, I can fit even more.
This is really cool, people. If you dump an 80 gig harddrive into your xbox, you can have a vast number of psone games on the system itself.
No more worrying about scratched discs. No more lamenting your messed up copy of FF VII which won't let you get past disc 2. No more loosing discs.
Simply navigate through the menu structure, and choose your form of entertainment.
Hell, I don't even watch cable anymore. My system simply records the shows I want to see, and saves them on my harddrive. They are recompressed to xvid, and then dumped in my tvshows dir.
South Park on tap. Final Fantasy on tap (one through eight!). Music on tap.
Your right, not much can be done about this. Tough problem to solve.
* Access to existing Microsoft documents - Most businesses have all of their data locked away in MS documents, and only MS apps can be guaranteed to open them properly. We really need a slick tool that batches these.doc,.xls,.ppt, etc. documents and mass converts them open XML documents, once the filters are (we hope) figured out to the Nth degree of accuracy.
This is a really tough problem, but is becoming less 'relatively' important. Why? As MS Office develops more version, it becomes less capable of reading older versions of its documents. Office XP botches Office 95 documents sometimes.
And I think it is simply unacceptable to have multiple versions of the same office suite installed.
* Home-grown applications - Most businesses have a bunch of tools that range from fully developed applications, right down to customized macros on spreadsheets, that were created on MS products. They may be company supported or just a pet project of an employee who needs it to get his/her work done. Regardless, moving to Linux will probably break them, and cause much grief to those maintaining them.
* Enterprise-class apps on Windows only - The *really* big one. Big companies have already invested huge dollars in purchasing proprietary applications for accounting, project/time management, human resources, etc. The companies that produce these tools aren't going to make Linux versions until they see a few big customers committing to go with their product AND switching to Linux. Pretty hard for a company to commit to the switch if the product doesn't yet exist. The proverbial Catch-22.
See Wine. Its really come pretty far. Codeweavers Wine runs MS Office, Internet Explorer, and most custom apps as long they aren't really bizarre.
Enterprise-class apps, I'm not sure really what your talking about---- are you talking about things like Photoshop, or the Macromedia products? Or are you talking about esoteric server apps?
Some of these Wine will run well, and some of these it will botch.
Nearly everything you can possibly want to run, however, will run brilliantly on VMware. This is a poor solution, because it requires you to have a virtual machine running windows. It's not a terrible idea for an intermediate step.
If you haven't played with wine lately, you should download it and give it a try. It has gotten much better, and there are several projects working on it (CodeWeavers, ReWind, Transgaming, and the original Wine crew). It is certainly not a broad migration solution yet. But it is about 90% there, and depending upon your needs, may or may not be good for your needs.
I don't know how many megs of personal files you keep, especially files that get updated often.
I have about 400 megs of really imporant 'personal' files on my system. I back those up about once a week. But it really is such a small amount of data that I could feasible setup a backup everytime I log in or log out. Log in---all data copied over the network in 10 seconds or so. Log out---all data copied over the network in 10 seconds or so. I could even keep 3-4 days worth of logins, if I was really paranoid. And this is starting out REALLY paranoid. I could just backup files that I changed--voila, most backups are under a meg.
The other 50 gigs of crap on my harddrive takes a great deal longer to move around. Though not that long, in the grand scheme of things.
And as long as your system remains functional, your automated document backups can be nice and seamless. You don't have to futz with tapes, cds, dvds, or any recovery booting. Just log in, log out. Or setup your 'backup' script. Or put a copy icon on your desktop top.
In fact, if home files are sufficently well segmented, and your system is properly secure, personal files can just be backed up to a separate directory. Very fast, entirely automated.
I also feel that the North Korean government can not be trusted, at all, to ever, ever, ever, live up to any sort of international commitment. Not without a large degree of international monitoring.
Why do they want negotiations with just the U.S.? Because they can push us around behind closed doors.
I'm not saying we should allow the war to happen. It will be really, really, really bloody. Lots of South Koreans will die. Lots of North Koreans will die. American soldiers will die. China relies upon an stable Korean pennisula.
But we shouldn't be paying them off. Money into the North Korean regime may or may not help the North Korean people. Its unclear, because there is no monitoring or transparency. Odds are, money into the North Korean regime helps the regime oppress its people.
I don't believe they will stop nuclearization if we give them money, and I don't believe that the money will be distributed to those in need.
So why give it to them? So they won't start a war?
That's what we refer to as being 'mugged'. It's nuclear blackmail. It's what the whole world feared the nuclear powers would do, except now North Korea has done it directly. Give us money, or we will kill you.
The 'bastards' I refer to are the dirty scoundrals ruling the regime.
The ones who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
I have Iraqi relatives. Iraqis are, by and large, decent people. While I don't have any North Korean relatives, I'm sure that the same is true over there.
I've got plenty of friends from South Korea. I don't see why I wouldn't be able to have friends from North Korea. 'Cept their government sucks. Its evil. I want their government to starve. Food aid won't do any good. It props up an ailing regime.
Diplomacy will not resolve the situation. We've tried that. I don't trust their government. I don't think they should be given anything by our government. I don't think we should cooperate with them in any fashion. The North Korean government IS evil. We shouldn't have anything to do with it. I say we back the South Korean's up on whatever they want to do. If South Korea wants to develop a framework for normalization, so be it. If South Korea can dream up someway to open up North Korea, so be it.
It has nothing to do with the United States. The current administration was correct in labelling the N. Korean government as EVIL. The current administration is also correct in saying (as Powell has said multiple times) we have no reason to attack N. Korea, so we won't.
Threatening our allies is NOT a good move on the part of N. Korea. If the Chinese want to subsidize N. Korean food aid, so be it. We won't sanction China if they do.
But there is no reason we should appease them.
I am the reason why N. Korea resorted to this tactic? Bullshit. The day the N. Korean government burns, I'll be thrilled. I find it tragic that the North Korean people have to live under such a disgusting regime. I don't think that the U.S. provinding funds to this regime is the correct solution.
If it were up to me, I would be willing to make a different deal: "Democratize, and you get aid----Abandon your weapons program completely, allow inspectors in, and begin disbanding your regime, and we'll give you billions. Otherwise, go to hell."
I don't trust the North Korean government to properly distrbute food aid. I don't trust the North Korean government to disband their nuclear program without inspectors and transparency. I don't trust the North Korean government to give a damn about lives, South Korean or North Korean.
I do hate those bastards. Not because they are 'North Korean'. Because they are a truely evil government.
I pine for the people of N. Korea. I'm sad that the world does not apply more diplomatic pressure.
I feel the same way about Israel (time for non-Jews to be considered first class citizens). I feel the same way about Saudi Arabia. I feel the same way about Iran (which is SO close to liberation---another referendum is on the horizon there---Iranians can almost taste freedom).
I don't think that the current North Korean policy is a reaction to American beliigerence. I think that they seek concessions and appeasment, all the while never living up to any obligations under any treaties.
American foreign policy is too hypocritical. We sanction Pakistan and India, yet we don't sanction Israel or North Korea? Just because Israel/North Korea are willing to be belligerent---Pakistan's response to sanctions? Nothing. North Korea's response to sanctions? Invade South Korea. Israel's response to any sort of criticism? "You must be an anti-semite!"
The US, South Korea, and Japan have been providing large amounts of food aid to North Korea for years now.
They signed the so-called 'Sunshine' agreement (The official name was the 'agreeded' protocal, or something like that), guaranteeing oil, and light water reactors in exchange for shelving their nuclear weapons program.
Then North Korea says, oh, by the way, we've been building nukes all along.
And using nukes as a deterrent? Bullshit. They are using nukes for extortion! "Give us more aid, don't stop trading with us, or we will use our nukes."
They haven't said if you attack us, we will use them. They said if you stopped subsidizing our failing, stalinist economy, we will consider that a decleration of war. When India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices, they got sanctioned. Why? Because we have worldwide treaties to prevent nuclearization of signatories to the NPT. The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is a signatory to the NPT.
But if we sanction them, they will destroy Seoul, and half of South Korea.
They are using their military might to prop up a failing, and disgusting stalinist regime. Even if you are a good little Marxist, you should be appalled at the structure of the DPRK. They don't deserve a guarantee of safety.
Why do I say this? Because if they had just stuck with the sunshine agreement, they wouldn't need one. They would be well on track to integration with South Korea, and liberalization.
Instead, they choose to prop up a stalinist hell with nuclear THREAT.
And why should we trust them again? We fund them with food aid, and they go ahead a nuclearize anyway. That's crazy, and it is in exactly this scenario that appeasment doesn't work.
Tit-for-tat is the only workable strategy with a belligerent.
American policy makers DO understand that. Basically, what I forsee is forestalling the North Koreans, givening them half-concessions indefintely, in order to prevent a war, until their decript regime either collapse around them, or China decides its time for a change.
We have NO reason to invade North Korea, except so much as we perceive them to be a threat to South Korea. Nuclearization makes them more of a threat, not less---They are attempting blackmail.
And at this point in time, China probably is more interested in good relations with South Korea (for economic trade relations), then North Korea.
Screw them. Let those bastards starve. They threaten to kill 6 million South Koreans to prop up their disgusting regime?
Your right on arsenic. You must have read that somewhere.
Modern oil extraction techniques are 'generally' safe. That doesn't mean that every oil company out there uses state of the art technology.
Trust me, they don't---its a question of properly regulating their operations in certain areas to ensure that undue harm isn't caused. I have no idea whats going on in Canada---but I have a fair amount of knowledge of small/medium oil extraction operations.
The war on drugs is a success? Har Har Har-- you must be trolling.
You might like the idea of sentencing 'druggies'. This is stupid, for a number of reasons.
From your failure to demonstrate any sort of indepth knowledge, I'll surmise that your an alcoholic, and have already fried all your neurons.
Maybe you want to bring back prohibition, 'cause that worked out fine and dandy.
Not to mention Tobacco----There is research to suggest that nicotine is the most addictive substance know to man.
But Tobacco gets to be the second largest cash crop of Kentucky. (Obviously another success of the drug war. Black market prices have made Marijuana the LARGEST cash crop of Kentucky. Not only do we have a great deal of property damage/life lost in the OPEN WARFARE between rich growers and heavily armed DEA agents, it has become an artifically huge sector of certain areas of the U.S., driving a significant percentage of domestic transactions into an untaxable, and impossible to regulate industry.) This, of course, is strange, because the street price to potency ratio, in dollars adujsted for inflation, has declined over the years.
Not just Pot. Cocaine. Heroine. Ecstasty. LSD.
Drugs have gotten stronger, and cheaper.
Hey---maybe it is a success---After all, the way the government 'regulates' the controlled substances industry has produced both reductions in cost and increases in quality. It's the American Way, baby---Where there is demand, supply will improve, given free market conditions.
The only problem is we now send 'young punks' to jail. In droves. And pay for court costs, jail fees, and vast law enforcement budget. For commiting a victimless crime.
Beyond that---The Office of National Drug Policy says drug users fund terrorism. Well, guess what, bub-- Why does the black market use money laundering? Why are all those funds untracable and impossible to regulate? And why are there such large profits, anyways?
Prohibition.
[i]Wake up, dumbass.[/i]
If Drug Money goes to terrorism, its the Government's fault. If Drug Money funds innercity, its the Government's fault. If Drug Money kills your son, its the Government's fault.
The DEA has so much as admitted that usage rates continue to increase. Approximately 35% of Americans have tried Marijuana at least once. Extremely high levels of highschoolers consider themselves regular users (this has tapered off slightly since '98, but only because it would have had trouble getting ANY higher).
Hell, nearly every political candidate has had some degree of experimentation with various illegal drugs.
And their children (Bush's daughters, who got caught try to buy ecstasy, trying to buy pharmaceutical opiates, and possession of marijuana; Ashcroft's Nephew, who was GROWING pot, and dealing POUNDS---escaped the manditory minimums of Mississippi (When Ashcroft was state attorney general) because of political pressure)) are ALWALYS high.
Grow up----Not everything is as it should be in the Drug Way. For 60 years now our drug policy has been nonsensical, permitting two drugs, but banning other ones indiscriminately, without any amount of review or common sense. Crimes rates continue to rise, Usage rates continue to rise, billions of dollars are spent, and the industry GROWS.
Even if I thought it was a good idea, the failure of drug prohibition to acheive even minimal success in either detering dealing, reducing usage rates, or decreasing avaliability is incre
I don't remember the link, but it is somewhere on Washingtonpost.com. The U.S. spends more on defense than every other nation in the world, added together.
Yep, all 191.
The U.S. couldn't invade the rest of the world, but rest assured, the U.S. is secure from any invasion the rest of the world could possibly plot for the next 2-3 decades or so.
Terrorism is a different issue, though.
I guess you Canadaians could engage in some sort of suicide bombing, but, trust me, government sanction suicide bombing won't end up well for the government. See Afghanistan.
Seriously. I don't understand why, but why don't we just get rid of most of these notions of copyright. A large portion of the American population thinks its fine to copy files/dvds/vhs all sorts of things.
Copyright is a grant by the government of a monopoly right to produce a product.
So lets get rid of it. It's an outdated notion, and it's not like anyone has God-given right to anything sort of grant by the government. It is not 'immoral' or 'unethical' to replicate intellectual property, except for the legal aspect.. Most of our economic laws are in place to encourage a certain economic structure. Laws against activities that hurt people=Moral questions. Laws to promote economic model=matter of preference.
It is already a very common practice, and I would guess that a majority of Americans think file sharing to fantastic, not criminal.
Why hasn't anyone seriously proposed this? Sure, it would hurt contributions from the entertainment industry, but it would probably increase contributions from electronics manufactures (Sony/Intel/etc), and be a great campaign issue: "You want your Napster? Fine. Vote for the Democrats(or Republican, or Green, or whoever is willing to do it) and you'll get it. We'll even throw in some funding to get Internet2 online faster, and make person-2-person even faster!"
Before you snicker at that idea, realize that then there could be reasonable regulations to protect certain industries. Music=freely tradable. Movies=freely tradable. Software=2 years before its freely tradable. Books=4 years before they are freely tradable. Etc. ..
Sure, Books and Software would still be illegaly traded, but keeping it illegal for a little while would prevent wholesale production of knockoffs.
But as far as I, and most of the American public is probably concerned, unlikes books and software, music is performed! . And that's good enough to encourage individuals to go into the music industry. Remember: Copyright exists to promote the arts and sciences. Musicians have a viable revenue stream without the recording industry.
And the recording industry? I don't care if record execs end up in the gutter. They plan on sending college 'kids' to jail? Bah. The Government no longer needs to issue a monopoly to these people. They don't provide any useful function anymore. The internet can do what they did at a fraction of the cost, with far greater accesibility. So what if there is dilution---->If the government was willing to endorse wholesale filesharing, it might even start the golden age internet advocates have been talking about for ages.
Slashdot Mirror
you babble a lot about over and covert surveillance, matt---
I suspect you are really an undercover 'black op' agent of the UN, lulling us into believe that the system of control is really that simple.
All of your conspiracy theories probably pale in comparison to the truth
You think you know what the matrix is?
Offtopic:Gimme a call sometime, you bum; we haven't talked in a while.
I've been saying this for YEARS.
Copyright only exists to protect and encourage the arts and sciences. There is no intrisic moral value in copyright.
Given the nature of modern technology, and the low cost of modern distribution (electronically), we can safely abolish the concept of copyright.
Politics is the difficult business of allocating resources effectively. In this case, the happiness of the many (public, and, I would argure, the artists (and wannabe artists)), outweight the needs of the few (RIAA, big 4 record companies).
Funny.
I was curious, and tried their website, which is much better than it used to be, now it is like nvidias.
Lets see-----Graphic Drivers, Linux, 8500.
Funny, their are drivers there. Sure, they are a little old, but whatever, ATI always has old drivers on their site.
Then, lets see. Where I usually go---
Fire GL, Linux, FireGL 8800
The new drivers---> Both packages above are the fglrx drivers. Both unofficially are supported on the Radeon 8500 through the Radeon 9700.
Get a life, people. ATI driver support has not changed. They have always unofficially supported linux in this fashion--->if their drivers cost you $10,000 in hardware, thats your problem. I'll bet that NVIDIA's 'official' support, however, has a liability wavier associated with. The only difference is that NVIDIA supports their card, if their driver fries it, while ATI will not.
But, I've never seen any device's driver fry the hardware from its manufacturer.
Besides, which of these two manufactures releases the specs on their cards? Which of these two manufactures has active open source drivers in development? ATI has been MUCH better to the linux community than Nvidia.
Even if their hardware/drivers are slightly buggier.
I can think of all sorts of variations on this experiment. I really want one of these machines!
For example, do the experiment they did on one group. Do a control group. Then do a pre-treatment on both groups (control and experimental). Does the machine actually cause you to learn faster? Can the author actually draw at a vastly superior level now that he not connected to the machine?
Or does the machine provide temporary amplification. I imagine that it is something in between. Often, when I have studied a problem, I gain a huge amount of insight into it. Afterwards, I look back upon the work I have done, am *very* surprised that it turned out so well, but end up at a higher level of skill overall.
If this machine is anything like the way it is described, I'll trade a kidney for one.
Either IBM will absolutely destroy their case, quickly (This is the option they will choose if they really want to support linux), or IBM will file more paperwork than the laweyers at SCO will ever be able to read and understand (IBM's first legal brief against the Justice Department in the 70's was 56 4-drawer filing cabinets).
Option 2 is the safer option--SCO just can't handle that kind of legal pressure and commitment.
On the other hand, I'm sure that IBM upper-management understands that the longer this lawsuit drags on, the more it will affect linux, and to a lesser degree, AIX
If IBM's upper management really has a lot of faith in their linux development strategy (which, I suspect they do), I expect IBM to quickly smash SCO by brandishing patents suggesting SCO could never have owned the underlying technologies behind Unix.
I don't think this case is about a copyright issue. This is about SCO having the rights to all derivative UNIX works. I suspect that IBM is going to prove it has the necessary patents to claim ownership of lots of the technologies within UNIX.
Interestingly enough, Novell never transferred UNIX patents to SCO, just trademarks, and possibly copyrights. SCO probably has no idea what IBM is going to hit them with.
This is especially funny, because IBM has already had a technical/legal board review the transfer of RCU code to linux under the GPL---I suspect they already have a document saying something like this:
A. We can do this because we own it;
B. And if we don't actually own it, its protected by these patents;
C. And if we can't protect it using those patents, we can show that we created a similar implementation first, on a different system.
D. And even if all that is irrelevant, we control the original sequent contract licenesing RCU to SCO---We revoke SCO's license to RCU, for X legal reasons.
IBM's case may be so strong in this position that it makes NO sense for them to say anything about it. Wait till it comes to court, don't give SCO anytime to pullout (probably too late for that now), countersue SCO, and allow SCO to settle by assigning all rights on UNIX to IBM.
If SCO doesn't settle, I suspect that IBM will try and take all of those rights, or have those rights rendered void. And they'll win, either based on: a)the weakness in SCOs case---('Copyrights! Trade Secrets! We never really actually sold Linux! They are terrorists anyways!') b) the strength of IBM's patent portfolio, c) Or the courts unwillingness to acknowledge the bizarre series of contract transfers away from AT&T-->I suspect that any judge (and ESPECIALLY a jury) will be totally unwilling to buy SCO's 'We are the mother of all things UNIX' mentaility.
Even if there are some minor contractual quibbles, SCO just doesn't have much to do with the UNIX world. SCO is a tiny little company, attempting to destroy a huge industry of behemoths, a lot of which have sold systems to the federal government. Who has more credibility regarding UNIX---Big Blue, or Caldera a.k.a. SCO? This ownership of all derivative works business would have been a stretch if AT&T had tried it. For a small linux distributor to try it? HAHAHAHAHAHA
I read the news as much as the next guy. I'm just as interested in this case as the next guy. But I'm no longer mad at SCO, and I'm not even willing to be foaming at the mouth. SCO has clearly stopped targetting the linux community---thats too hard. Instead they've targetted IBM, for trade secret infringment.
It's like some random idiot on the street suing the government for rights on the legislative process because he was related to some legal philosopher from the 1600s. IBM's internal divisions have already covered this issue, at length, in triplicate, with review, ad infinitum.
It's really just hopeless.
BTW: To all you SCO engineers out there, you guys should have some sort of backup plan. Like, maybe, saving evidence of managment's activites, so when the grand jury
Redhat, Mandrake, Debian et al. have legal teams, I believe.
GNU, and FSF, should care what is going on with this case.
OSI has something to say too.
In reaction to posts like this one linux distributors should sue SCO, asking for the following:
A. Injunction against scaring potential and existing customers away from linux, using threatening letters.
B. Disclosure of offending lines of code.
C. Bar SCO from legally threatening ANY Linux user under the grounds of copyright infringment, since SCO has already released all the code under the GPL (and continues to do so, by disseminating linux-kernel-source from their website).
It seems to me that this should be a simple process. Indeed, if I wasn't dead broke, I might decide to file a case like this myself.
In addition, why not fork SCO's Caldera kernel-> Isn't their custom kernel usuable as 'linux'? Just take their kernel, strip out the SCO bits, add our own, and call in the SCO-lawsuit-protected kernel--after all, you got it from SCO, and they have agreed not to prosecute people using their code.
Infact, this last option seems to be an ace in the hole for us. Unless I'm wrong, in which case someone should explain why to me.
Sure, its illegal. But I don't think that it can be stopped.
Disclamer: I DO NOT have the balls to do this. I wish I did. Maybe if I lived in another country. My puny little balls make me fearful of nearly every legal risk. I don't speed, and I don't disclose NDA protected material. I won't sign this NDA, 'cause I'm scared like a little dog.
What if, say, John Doe, signed the NDA, got the documentation, scanned it in, removed all personally identifiable charateristics, and then uploaded it to freenet?
Just a thought. Any of you black hats with big, titanium bullet-proof balls willing to do this? (Note, these are figurative balls. I know MANY females with bigger balls than me. This is not designed to be misogynistic. Any flames will end up burning my balls, and won't be responded to, because I'll be cradling my balls in ice )
Specifically trouble-making types---seems like you could cause SCO a lot of pain and trouble by pulling a stunt like this, and if you were a lot smarter than me (maybe not that much smarter), you could do it and not get caught.
Just my 2 cents.
As I see it, there are three possibilities.
A. IBM screwed up. They released stuff from their SCO license into Linux. Oops.
B. IBM didn't screw up. They have all the evidence (remember, they have BOTH SCO's source, and Linux's source). They don't care what SCO says, because they already HAVE all the evidence. They can't release the evidence, because that would then violate their licensing agreement with SCO, but they can sure as hell prepare they legal briefs now.
C. IBM didn't screw up. They are in cahoots with SCO, and are doing this to screw linux.
Given IBM's investment in Linux, and its contribution to the kernel, and other software, I'm guessing that C is highly unlikely.
I dunno, A seems unlikely to me too. If A were the case, an IBM had a big problem on their hands, I think that as soon as SCO threaten them, they would have rapidly been able to determine that SCO's claim has some legitimacy, and bought them out immediately. After all, they have plenty of cash.
That leaves B. Someone in the IBM legal department is of the opinion that they have a REALLY strong case. Someone on the board of directors decided it would be better for their credibility if they blow SCO out of the water.
Remember, IBM can see both sides of the table here. They hold all the cards. They don't need to get SCO to show them the evidence, so they didn't even have to ask.
They knew they would win from day one. You can't bluff when the other guy sees your cards.
Second of all, I'll derive MUCH more satisfaction watching a judge laugh at them.
German courts have already slapped them in the face.
I believe that IBM can, and will, continue to ignore them, and will tear them to pieces in court.
Remember, IBM has all of the evidence. They have the SCO source code, and the Linux kernel code.
THEY ALREADY NOW IF THEY CAN WIN THEIR CASE. You can bet MILLIONS that IBM has legal and technical teams reviewing that code, letter by letter.
IBM can't release the evidence, because then they would be in violation. But they have a license to prepare the legal briefs! This case was lost (by SCO), before it was filed.
SCO's own linux distribution was hazadarous to them. They did something stupid with it. They continued to distribute it.
SCO is making allegations that are OFFENSIVE to members of the opensource community that have contributed to the linux kernel, and to the 'linux community', whatever they may be.
The 'linux community', at large, tries pretty hard to avoid issues like this, and for the most part, if you had any familiarity with IP cases, you would understand SCO is acting as if it was bluffing.
The sancity of their trade secrets has already been violated. If you assume that their claims are correct, than they have already released their own code (unknownigly), in their custom kernels for the caldera distribution.
Generally, when a company has a strong IP case, they parade the evidence all over the place, in order to convince the other to settle quickly---after all, settling now is cheaper than settling later, 'cause settling after a court order will cost you court costs as well.
On the other hand, if you are bluffing, you DON'T release your evidence, because you want someone to buy you out, to shut you up. You drag out precedings, and make ridiculous, slanderous claims, in order to upset your enemies, and you harass their customers, so that other corporations will buy you out, 'cause all the trouble you are making is costing them more money than the buy out costs.
This second scenario seems far more likely. Especially given that SCO had to close its German operations because a German court ordered it to release its evidence regarding IP violations, or cease threatening to sue. In Germany, you aren't allowed to threaten to sue without evidence. You have to put up, or shut up. SCO shut up.
This has no legal precedence for U.S. legal preceedings, but it does say something about SCO's sinceritity. Why didn't they just give the evidence to German courts?
Because they don't have it. Because the case is BS. Because SCO is an incompentent company. It was incompentent when it was called caldera. It has nothing to do with the intellectual roots of unix.
Sad to say, but I think Michael's right. SCO's board of directors are a bunch of immature assholes, and you have very little grasp of the situation. This isn't just about a fair trial before being stoned to death. This is about the last gasp of a shitty company, who has spread FUD to all kinds of customers, of customers of companies like MY OWN. Telling them they shouldn't be adopting my product.
Without evidence. Merely asserting my product has bizarre, unknown risks associtated with it. Its as is I e-mailed all Microsoft customers, saying "I wouldn't use windows, because they use stolen IP, and I will prove this as some point in the future".
This is NOT fair. Legally required to protect their secrets? You have no idea what you are talking about it.
Pull your head out of your ass.
If this is the long and the short of their 'IP' complaint, I'm going to laugh my ass off.
SCO complains that we use their implementation of iBCS shouldn't be in the kernel.
Fine. Screw SCO. If we loose iBCS, all that means is we can't use SCO applications, or applications developed for SCO Unix, right?
They are trying to sue the rest of us into not being able to use SCO applications.
Fine by me
I don't speak German, but this seems to be the document that SCO is going to release.
It says something about shared libraries. Anyone willing to translate it for me?
SCOscource.pdf
Someone, tell me what this says, my German is REALLY rusty
Yeah, showshifter will run any codec you install into the Windows codec thinger---
:)
It handles the post-processing pretty nicely, you can have it automatically queue up jobs when your system is idling.
If you have an uber box, you could probably record directly to XviD.
I prefer to keep some of my processor cycles free
Right now, i'm using showshifter---
:)
Its unforunately not 'free', its a windows app, but it does its job pretty well. Its handles everything by itself, but it is a major resources hog, and slow to boot. This is on an Athlon XP 1800+, with 256 mb ram. I can't get it to record natively to xvid or divx without dropping loads of frames, so I record to mpeg-2
When exam week is over, I plan getting Freevo to work properly. It has lots of promise.
If your really ambitious, you can run Freevo on your xbox
When I started trying to get this project on my 'nux box, I figured I would need a disgusting set of shell scripts. So I went with ShowShifter, because at the time Freevo was not around.
Freevo has most of the showshifter functionality now, though.
This probably wasn't the answer you were looking for, 'cause its really not hardcore geek enough, but it works
I don't really understand why?
I own an snes, a playstation, an nes, and an xbox.
I've got all my cd's ripped to mp3s on my home system, and I've got most of my dvds ripped to high quality vbr xvid.
Now, I can play all of this content through my xbox.
Nearly all of it, ('cept the playstation stuff) is shared through samba, and I can access it all through a convient, on screen menu system.
I also have in-game saves for all of my games, and it is really nice to be able to pick a playlist of a GENRE of movie you might like, and then push random.
Or TV shows, for that matter. I enjoy pulling up my Dune mini-series, or HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
All without swapping discs.
I haven't upgraded the harddrive in my xbox, but thats not a concern. I can either a) share what I need over the LAN, or b)burn it to DVD-RW, and play it that way.
What's the average playstation game size? 200 megs? 400 megs? Lets say 300, though I'm sure its probably less than that (I know that there are games that fill discs, or even span discs, but the vast majority of them don't). So 300 megs, I can fit maybe 10-12 games on a DVD-R. And if they gzip down at all, I can fit even more.
This is really cool, people. If you dump an 80 gig harddrive into your xbox, you can have a vast number of psone games on the system itself.
No more worrying about scratched discs. No more lamenting your messed up copy of FF VII which won't let you get past disc 2. No more loosing discs.
Simply navigate through the menu structure, and choose your form of entertainment.
Hell, I don't even watch cable anymore. My system simply records the shows I want to see, and saves them on my harddrive. They are recompressed to xvid, and then dumped in my tvshows dir.
South Park on tap. Final Fantasy on tap (one through eight!). Music on tap.
Life is good
I don't know how many megs of personal files you keep, especially files that get updated often.
I have about 400 megs of really imporant 'personal' files on my system.
I back those up about once a week. But it really is such a small amount of data that I could feasible setup a backup everytime I log in or log out.
Log in---all data copied over the network in 10 seconds or so. Log out---all data copied over the network in 10 seconds or so.
I could even keep 3-4 days worth of logins, if I was really paranoid.
And this is starting out REALLY paranoid. I could just backup files that I changed--voila, most backups are under a meg.
The other 50 gigs of crap on my harddrive takes a great deal longer to move around. Though not that long, in the grand scheme of things.
And as long as your system remains functional, your automated document backups can be nice and seamless. You don't have to futz with tapes, cds, dvds, or any recovery booting. Just log in, log out. Or setup your 'backup' script. Or put a copy icon on your desktop top.
In fact, if home files are sufficently well segmented, and your system is properly secure, personal files can just be backed up to a separate directory. Very fast, entirely automated.
You probably are misunderstanding me slightly.
Not that this will make you agree with me.
I feel terrible for North Korean civilians.
I also feel that the North Korean government can not be trusted, at all, to ever, ever, ever, live up to any sort of international commitment. Not without a large degree of international monitoring.
Why do they want negotiations with just the U.S.? Because they can push us around behind closed doors.
I'm not saying we should allow the war to happen. It will be really, really, really bloody. Lots of South Koreans will die. Lots of North Koreans will die. American soldiers will die. China relies upon an stable Korean pennisula.
But we shouldn't be paying them off. Money into the North Korean regime may or may not help the North Korean people. Its unclear, because there is no monitoring or transparency. Odds are, money into the North Korean regime helps the regime oppress its people.
I don't believe they will stop nuclearization if we give them money, and I don't believe that the money will be distributed to those in need.
So why give it to them? So they won't start a war?
That's what we refer to as being 'mugged'. It's nuclear blackmail. It's what the whole world feared the nuclear powers would do, except now North Korea has done it directly. Give us money, or we will kill you.
The 'bastards' I refer to are the dirty scoundrals ruling the regime.
The ones who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Idiot.
This has gone really offtopic now.
I have Iraqi relatives. Iraqis are, by and large, decent people. While I don't have any North Korean relatives, I'm sure that the same is true over there.
I've got plenty of friends from South Korea. I don't see why I wouldn't be able to have friends from North Korea.
'Cept their government sucks. Its evil. I want their government to starve. Food aid won't do any good. It props up an ailing regime.
Diplomacy will not resolve the situation. We've tried that. I don't trust their government. I don't think they should be given anything by our government. I don't think we should cooperate with them in any fashion. The North Korean government IS evil. We shouldn't have anything to do with it. I say we back the South Korean's up on whatever they want to do. If South Korea wants to develop a framework for normalization, so be it. If South Korea can dream up someway to open up North Korea, so be it.
It has nothing to do with the United States. The current administration was correct in labelling the N. Korean government as EVIL. The current administration is also correct in saying (as Powell has said multiple times) we have no reason to attack N. Korea, so we won't.
Threatening our allies is NOT a good move on the part of N. Korea. If the Chinese want to subsidize N. Korean food aid, so be it. We won't sanction China if they do.
But there is no reason we should appease them.
I am the reason why N. Korea resorted to this tactic? Bullshit. The day the N. Korean government burns, I'll be thrilled. I find it tragic that the North Korean people have to live under such a disgusting regime. I don't think that the U.S. provinding funds to this regime is the correct solution.
If it were up to me, I would be willing to make a different deal: "Democratize, and you get aid----Abandon your weapons program completely, allow inspectors in, and begin disbanding your regime, and we'll give you billions. Otherwise, go to hell."
I don't trust the North Korean government to properly distrbute food aid. I don't trust the North Korean government to disband their nuclear program without inspectors and transparency. I don't trust the North Korean government to give a damn about lives, South Korean or North Korean.
I do hate those bastards. Not because they are 'North Korean'. Because they are a truely evil government.
I pine for the people of N. Korea. I'm sad that the world does not apply more diplomatic pressure.
I feel the same way about Israel (time for non-Jews to be considered first class citizens). I feel the same way about Saudi Arabia. I feel the same way about Iran (which is SO close to liberation---another referendum is on the horizon there---Iranians can almost taste freedom).
I don't think that the current North Korean policy is a reaction to American beliigerence. I think that they seek concessions and appeasment, all the while never living up to any obligations under any treaties.
American foreign policy is too hypocritical. We sanction Pakistan and India, yet we don't sanction Israel or North Korea? Just because Israel/North Korea are willing to be belligerent---Pakistan's response to sanctions? Nothing. North Korea's response to sanctions? Invade South Korea. Israel's response to any sort of criticism? "You must be an anti-semite!"
I wouldn't trust the N. Korean government at all.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
The US, South Korea, and Japan have been providing large amounts of food aid to North Korea for years now.
They signed the so-called 'Sunshine' agreement (The official name was the 'agreeded' protocal, or something like that), guaranteeing oil, and light water reactors in exchange for shelving their nuclear weapons program.
Then North Korea says, oh, by the way, we've been building nukes all along.
And using nukes as a deterrent? Bullshit. They are using nukes for extortion! "Give us more aid, don't stop trading with us, or we will use our nukes."
They haven't said if you attack us, we will use them. They said if you stopped subsidizing our failing, stalinist economy, we will consider that a decleration of war. When India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices, they got sanctioned. Why? Because we have worldwide treaties to prevent nuclearization of signatories to the NPT. The Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea is a signatory to the NPT.
But if we sanction them, they will destroy Seoul, and half of South Korea.
They are using their military might to prop up a failing, and disgusting stalinist regime. Even if you are a good little Marxist, you should be appalled at the structure of the DPRK. They don't deserve a guarantee of safety.
Why do I say this? Because if they had just stuck with the sunshine agreement, they wouldn't need one. They would be well on track to integration with South Korea, and liberalization.
Instead, they choose to prop up a stalinist hell with nuclear THREAT.
And why should we trust them again? We fund them with food aid, and they go ahead a nuclearize anyway. That's crazy, and it is in exactly this scenario that appeasment doesn't work.
Tit-for-tat is the only workable strategy with a belligerent.
American policy makers DO understand that. Basically, what I forsee is forestalling the North Koreans, givening them half-concessions indefintely, in order to prevent a war, until their decript regime either collapse around them, or China decides its time for a change.
We have NO reason to invade North Korea, except so much as we perceive them to be a threat to South Korea. Nuclearization makes them more of a threat, not less---They are attempting blackmail.
And at this point in time, China probably is more interested in good relations with South Korea (for economic trade relations), then North Korea.
Screw them. Let those bastards starve. They threaten to kill 6 million South Koreans to prop up their disgusting regime?
I hate those bastards.
You, sir, are an idiot.
Your right on arsenic. You must have read that somewhere.
Modern oil extraction techniques are 'generally' safe. That doesn't mean that every oil company out there uses state of the art technology.
Trust me, they don't---its a question of properly regulating their operations in certain areas to ensure that undue harm isn't caused. I have no idea whats going on in Canada---but I have a fair amount of knowledge of small/medium oil extraction operations.
The war on drugs is a success? Har Har Har-- you must be trolling.
You might like the idea of sentencing 'druggies'. This is stupid, for a number of reasons.
From your failure to demonstrate any sort of indepth knowledge, I'll surmise that your an alcoholic, and have already fried all your neurons.
Maybe you want to bring back prohibition, 'cause that worked out fine and dandy.
Not to mention Tobacco----There is research to suggest that nicotine is the most addictive substance know to man.
But Tobacco gets to be the second largest cash crop of Kentucky. (Obviously another success of the drug war. Black market prices have made Marijuana the LARGEST cash crop of Kentucky. Not only do we have a great deal of property damage/life lost in the OPEN WARFARE between rich growers and heavily armed DEA agents, it has become an artifically huge sector of certain areas of the U.S., driving a significant percentage of domestic transactions into an untaxable, and impossible to regulate industry.) This, of course, is strange, because the street price to potency ratio, in dollars adujsted for inflation, has declined over the years.
Not just Pot. Cocaine. Heroine. Ecstasty. LSD.
Drugs have gotten stronger, and cheaper.
Hey---maybe it is a success---After all, the way the government 'regulates' the controlled substances industry has produced both reductions in cost and increases in quality. It's the American Way, baby---Where there is demand, supply will improve, given free market conditions.
The only problem is we now send 'young punks' to jail. In droves. And pay for court costs, jail fees, and vast law enforcement budget. For commiting a victimless crime.
Beyond that---The Office of National Drug Policy says drug users fund terrorism. Well, guess what, bub-- Why does the black market use money laundering? Why are all those funds untracable and impossible to regulate? And why are there such large profits, anyways?
Prohibition.
[i]Wake up, dumbass.[/i]
If Drug Money goes to terrorism, its the Government's fault. If Drug Money funds innercity, its the Government's fault. If Drug Money kills your son, its the Government's fault.
The DEA has so much as admitted that usage rates continue to increase. Approximately 35% of Americans have tried Marijuana at least once. Extremely high levels of highschoolers consider themselves regular users (this has tapered off slightly since '98, but only because it would have had trouble getting ANY higher).
Hell, nearly every political candidate has had some degree of experimentation with various illegal drugs.
And their children (Bush's daughters, who got caught try to buy ecstasy, trying to buy pharmaceutical opiates, and possession of marijuana; Ashcroft's Nephew, who was GROWING pot, and dealing POUNDS---escaped the manditory minimums of Mississippi (When Ashcroft was state attorney general) because of political pressure)) are ALWALYS high.
Grow up----Not everything is as it should be in the Drug Way. For 60 years now our drug policy has been nonsensical, permitting two drugs, but banning other ones indiscriminately, without any amount of review or common sense. Crimes rates continue to rise, Usage rates continue to rise, billions of dollars are spent, and the industry GROWS.
Even if I thought it was a good idea, the failure of drug prohibition to acheive even minimal success in either detering dealing, reducing usage rates, or decreasing avaliability is incre
I don't remember the link, but it is somewhere on Washingtonpost.com. The U.S. spends more on defense than every other nation in the world, added together.
Yep, all 191.
The U.S. couldn't invade the rest of the world, but rest assured, the U.S. is secure from any invasion the rest of the world could possibly plot for the next 2-3 decades or so.
Terrorism is a different issue, though.
I guess you Canadaians could engage in some sort of suicide bombing, but, trust me, government sanction suicide bombing won't end up well for the government. See Afghanistan.
I guess I shouldn't be feeding the trolls, eh?
Seriously. I don't understand why, but why don't we just get rid of most of these notions of copyright. A large portion of the American population thinks its fine to copy files/dvds/vhs all sorts of things.
.
Copyright is a grant by the government of a monopoly right to produce a product.
So lets get rid of it. It's an outdated notion, and it's not like anyone has God-given right to anything sort of grant by the government. It is not 'immoral' or 'unethical' to replicate intellectual property, except for the legal aspect.. Most of our economic laws are in place to encourage a certain economic structure. Laws against activities that hurt people=Moral questions. Laws to promote economic model=matter of preference.
It is already a very common practice, and I would guess that a majority of Americans think file sharing to fantastic, not criminal.
Why hasn't anyone seriously proposed this? Sure, it would hurt contributions from the entertainment industry, but it would probably increase contributions from electronics manufactures (Sony/Intel/etc), and be a great campaign issue: "You want your Napster? Fine. Vote for the Democrats(or Republican, or Green, or whoever is willing to do it) and you'll get it. We'll even throw in some funding to get Internet2 online faster, and make person-2-person even faster!"
Before you snicker at that idea, realize that then there could be reasonable regulations to protect certain industries. Music=freely tradable. Movies=freely tradable. Software=2 years before its freely tradable. Books=4 years before they are freely tradable. Etc. .
Sure, Books and Software would still be illegaly traded, but keeping it illegal for a little while would prevent wholesale production of knockoffs.
But as far as I, and most of the American public is probably concerned, unlikes books and software, music is performed! . And that's good enough to encourage individuals to go into the music industry. Remember: Copyright exists to promote the arts and sciences. Musicians have a viable revenue stream without the recording industry.
And the recording industry? I don't care if record execs end up in the gutter. They plan on sending college 'kids' to jail? Bah. The Government no longer needs to issue a monopoly to these people. They don't provide any useful function anymore. The internet can do what they did at a fraction of the cost, with far greater accesibility. So what if there is dilution---->If the government was willing to endorse wholesale filesharing, it might even start the golden age internet advocates have been talking about for ages.
YOU ARE INSIGNIFICANT......
Use it well? Do Good?
I don't mind being vain.
Here Here! Mod this parent up---We should blacklist the BSA.
On second thought, isn't this e-mail that they are sending out spam? Shouldn't the BSA be submitted to the RBL?