I do not understand why Slashdot continues to support this woman.
I think you answered your own question a bit later mate.
The case against her certainly looks strong, but Thomas-Rasset remains defiant.
You see, here's how I see the whole debacle. I don't mean just Thomas, I mean this entire clusterfuck mess that filesharing has become. When I was young, I got yelled at if I didn't share things with my sister because, well, that was selfish and rude. She underwent the same yelling/punishment if she tried to lord something over me exclusively. Thus, I was raised, at the very least, to share things with my sister. That said, when we both started listening to music, we both shared our cassette tapes with each other. We even made multiple copies of them with our tape recorders. When CDs came out, we could no longer record from CD to CD so we found the best corollary was to upload the music to our family computer and then burn it onto 2 CDs, one for me, one for Sis. Well, of course, our social circles expanded come high school so we also started burning CDs for our friends. Why? Were we stealing from Wal Mart and Sony and EMI? Were we trying to overthrow a system or screw our favorite artists? Nah. We liked the music and wanted to spread it to those we shared interests with. We were in school so we couldn't very well afford to fork over $100 for five copies of the same album. So why not just burn it?
Well up came the internet so sometimes we also sent songs through e-mails to our friends. Sometimes we transferred a whole album at a time with a thumb drive. This was standard modus operandi. There was no mal intention. There was no vendetta against anyone. We were just enjoying the cultural riches of the music scene. Whenever my groups of friends went to concerts, we paid our fees to get in. Hell, we would drain our piggy banks to get $5 together to go see a local punk band because we enjoyed it and, as I said, we didn't want to screw the artists. If we could, we would buy their $4 demo album at the show but we told the bands we'd just share the CD between us because we couldn't afford better. They never cared.
Then I went to college. I remember reading the piracy rules regarding internet in the dormitories and was confused. Frankly, sharing music never seemed like a big deal to me but here was an official institution claiming that it would expel students if they were caught sharing music. What kind of neo-facist school did I pick to attend? I thought to myself. As I expressed this concern to others, they slowly started telling me, in my happy little ignorance, that it was actually a big deal nationally. This is how I was first informed about music companies suing their own customers for sharing a product that they had previously bought.
Needless to say, my response was WTF mate? What kind of horrible douchebaggery does it take to try to sue someone for sharing something? I mean, crap, I don't get sued by Cottonelle when guests use the toilet paper that I purchased for my home right?
So that was my introduction to the IP wars that are going on in society today. That experience led me to one viable, logical conclusion. The record companies are evil, zealous, cunts that deserve nothing more than to be burned at the stake...or, at least, the bastards in charge of the lawsuit campaigns deserve that. Once I picked up on the fact that, all of the sudden, it was now supposedly morally corrupt to share music with fellow music lovers, I started paying attention. I noticed the public smear campaign that went into convincing the unwashed masses (I tease) that piracy is some moral terror. I watched over the last five years as the general attitude in society went from, "What the hell are people being sued for?" to "What the hell are people downloading and swapping songs for free for?" I have watched a flagrant brainwashing of my fellow man at the hands of a few greedy bastards. For that reason, I despise the record companie
Governments certainly aren't for forcing a person to do anything, responsible or not. The purpose of a government is to protect its citizenry, not control it.
It encourages an evil science and evil men. Evil men grow nice, dark, slicked mustaches. QED, harvesting babies for their stem cells increases the mustache:nonmustache ratio in the world. Therefore, it benefits mankind.
That's okay, if Google wants to know about my porn searching habits I will just sleep at night amused with the knowledge that I made a Google employee uncomfortable that day.
Robert Pirsig's book Lila (sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, both worth reading) has quite a bit to say about the social implications of Victorian styles of society. Based on the book you just mentioned, you might check out Pirsig's work. It's very interesting.
and you have population of effete, spoiled sheep, ready to accept whatever shackles are imposed, in order that they be safe and comfortable.
Sounds like the Victorian Era.....which effectively ended when said social regime sent millions of young boys to die in the trenches of WWI. Ah what a bright future we have to look forward too =)
In other words, idiots are solipsists. They roam through the world filtering out everything that impedes upon the image of reality that sits inside their head. It is their fundamental notion that the world is, indeed, nothing more than the physical representation of a supposed ideal, 'truth,' that got lodged in their brains somehow.
The best cure for Solipsism?
A quick peckerslap in the face from reality.
Force a solipsist to repair a piece of machinery that he has not built himself, and now he has to face a strong, unforgiving blow to his ego. Now he must stare uncertainty and even incompetence in the eye and admit, "I don't know."
Force a solipsist to say that, and that mental construct of reality gets shattered. Now they have to fess up to the fact that there is a reality out there, and it doesn't give a damn about what they think about it. This is why I think it is important to teach kids to fix things. Raise a person to learn about, and work on, systems that they did not create, and they are forced to evolve into an intelligent, critical, thinking creature.
Can we change the outdated cliche of, "The pen is mightier than the sword," to a more modern version along the lines of, "The twits are mightier than the twats."
The 'twits,' of course, being the tweeters, whilst the 'twats' refers to the governments. =)
That reminds me of a revolution that one of my exgirlfriend's used to always reference to make a point. She always used to tell me about a government in South America (I don't recall what country or the details or anything really) that was effectively toppled by nothing more than a misinformation campaign. Apparently, some sort of freedom fighter movement was convinced not to fight at all by mass published media that spread the information that the opposing forces were glorious and had massive amounts of arms and planes and what not. The sad truth was that the powers that existed actually had a very small defense force that could have easily been toppled by the freedom fighters. However, the misinformation campaign was so successful that it discouraged any type of revolutionary action and, thus, helped create and maintain a regime that really couldn't have existed otherwise. Let's see, some quick googling turns up...
It appears I had it completely ass backwards. The CIA and USIA used a confusion and misinformation campaign to make it seem as if multiple groups of Guatemalan freedom fighters were making successful assaults on various cities and military resources, when, in fact, no such military blitz was occurring. The misinformation broadcast on the radio was enough to confuse the populace and overthrow the Arbenz regime.
So, there you go. I don't know how credible the source is or how biased it is or anything, but it serves, at least, as an interesting parable relating to the power of information. Information brokers really are worth quite a pretty penny. =)
It is in the satellite industry. What do you think you do on spacecraft for power? You either run some kind of fissile material engine for long range mission (past the asteroid belt) or you put solar panels on. If you use solar panels, you need a way to store energy when you are in shadow or when you are reorienting the spacecraft. Thus, you carry batteries. The most significant limiting factor in spacecraft design is mass. Mass costs money. Mass costs performance. Batteries are often one of the, if not the, largest single contributing factors to a given spacecraft mass budget. So, any type of battery that gives you high bang for low mass (i.e. a very energy dense battery) is a game changer for the spacecraft industry. We love to read about R&D on new batteries in the spacecraft industry. In fact, cell phones were one of the biggest beneficial developments in recent society for spacecraft because they spawned a whole new area of long life, low mass batteries.
That said, any news about new batteries is good news for us space geeks. =)
You know, I always wondered about the charge at home paradigm with electric cars. Right now, I drive a gasoline car. This affords me the luxury of not needing to fuel my car at home. As such, I do not need to maintain the infrastructure at home necessary to fuel my car (gas pump). However, the idea of, 'charge your car overnight, at home,' with electric cars is a problem with me. You see, now that means that my place of residence has to be capable of supporting the infrastructure to charge (to fuel) my car. That seems simple as it would simply require an outdoor plug and, perhaps, one more breaker added to my breaker box. Unfortunately though, for me, it's not that simple. I live in a condo complex with a shared parking lot that is a few dozen yards from my unit. There are no outdoor plugs on my condo. I suspect there are quite a few folk in similar positions in apartments, condo's, and maybe even duplexes. Of course, this is a workable problem, and, over time, residencies will evolve to include car charging facilities. However, it just goes to those that the idea of, "Just switch on over to electric," is not as simple or sound as if first seems.
Hmmm, well my initial failed recollection involved a discovery channel program I had watched regarding the Manhattan Project which discussed Einstein working on the development of a nuclear weapon. Research, however, shows that to be false. I imagine it was probably a failed memory on my part. However, I did find that:
Albert Einstein in particular wrote several letters to Franklin Roosevelt urging him to establish nuclear capability before the Germans.[11] These letters, especially one called the Einstein–Szilárd letter (dated August 2, 1939, but not personally received by Roosevelt until October 1939), brought American government attention and support to nuclear research.[12]
....via Wikipedia. As you also pointed out, it was Einstein's mathematics that were used directly during the Manhattan Project, not Einstein himself. So you are correct in your assertion that Einstein did not work on the nuclear program himself. However, just to be a stubborn ass, I would assert that he did, indeed, contribute significantly to establishing the American nuclear weapons program both through his mathematical contributions and his lobbying efforts to start the program in the first place.
You know, I have seen the American Third Position touted around slashdot a couple of times now so I looked into it because, from the way it has been discussed, it seemed like a reasonable, rational new political movement to make a grab at ousting the powers that be. So I clicked onto the A3P website, looked through some of their policies, and found this, regarding immigration:
To safeguard our identity and culture, and to maintain the very existence of our nation, we will immediately put an indefinite moratorium on all immigration......To restore, with civility, the identity and culture of our homeland, we will provide incentives for recent, legal immigrants to return to their respective lands.
Emphasis mine. So, while I may agree with the A3P position regarding space and fiscal responsibility, it appears that this party wants to take an isolationist attitude regarding the American culture. Never mind the fact that some of the greatest minds in America were immigrants. Nevermind the fact that Werner Von Braun was a German born rocket scientist, turned American immigrant, turned leader of the Saturn V program that got our boys to the moon. Never mind the fact that jazz, one of our greatest cultural movements in America, was started by immigrants. Nevermind the fact that Einstein, one of the best known scientists in the world, that contributed significantly to our nuclear supremacy was also a foreign born immigrant. Nevermind all those pesky historical facts that show, time and again, that legal immigration both enriches and strengthens America as a nation. Nah, forget all that, A3P is going to put a ban on ALL immigration. What's more? They are going to start paying legal immigrants to return to their own country. Goodbye knowledgeable Indian, Japanese, and Chinese scientists, programmers, engineers, and technicians. Goodbye Mexican immigrants that provide California with one of its most delicious and plentiful types of food. In fact, goodbye all non-native American people as you, in fact, have descended from immigrants yourself. We real Americans don't need you here.....
Oh wait...
So no, sorry, I am not going to give any credence to a political party that proudly declares white nationalism as one of its creeds and mission goals. The hypocrisy evident in the quote above with regards to immigration and the historical contribution immigrants have made to American technical progress is as thick as it is nauseating. Take your political astroturfing somewhere. I, for one, would rather spend my vote writing in a candidate with absolutely no chance at election (and thus adding one more vote to the count that reduces a possible majority of ANY party) than support that kind of bullshit that A3P is peddling.
I speculate that socialism is evil locally to you. Please don't extrapolate it to a national scale.
I suspect you missed the mocking/sarcastic tone of the OP's last sentence. Here's a hint, the quote marks around the first, "socialism," tend to imply that.
So, does an aspiring American rocket scientist try to find work in China or hope to get one of the few jobs with Space X, Scaled Composites, or Virgin Galactic?
Or Blue Origin, Armadillo Aerospace, Honeywell, Honeybee, ATK, Lockheed Martin-Boeing ULA, Cape Canaveral Launch ops support, VAFB launch ops support, Japan, India, Brazil, French Guiana, Russia,... those are just a few places off the top of my head. I have a spreadsheet of possible employers if you would like to see it. Though it is dated about a year or two.
Slashdot Mirror
Lack of substance in a particular article has never stopped some, "creative editing," on slashdot before ;)
Hahahaha, "Come one baby light my Karma on fire..."
I do not understand why Slashdot continues to support this woman.
I think you answered your own question a bit later mate.
The case against her certainly looks strong, but Thomas-Rasset remains defiant.
You see, here's how I see the whole debacle. I don't mean just Thomas, I mean this entire clusterfuck mess that filesharing has become. When I was young, I got yelled at if I didn't share things with my sister because, well, that was selfish and rude. She underwent the same yelling/punishment if she tried to lord something over me exclusively. Thus, I was raised, at the very least, to share things with my sister. That said, when we both started listening to music, we both shared our cassette tapes with each other. We even made multiple copies of them with our tape recorders. When CDs came out, we could no longer record from CD to CD so we found the best corollary was to upload the music to our family computer and then burn it onto 2 CDs, one for me, one for Sis. Well, of course, our social circles expanded come high school so we also started burning CDs for our friends. Why? Were we stealing from Wal Mart and Sony and EMI? Were we trying to overthrow a system or screw our favorite artists? Nah. We liked the music and wanted to spread it to those we shared interests with. We were in school so we couldn't very well afford to fork over $100 for five copies of the same album. So why not just burn it?
Well up came the internet so sometimes we also sent songs through e-mails to our friends. Sometimes we transferred a whole album at a time with a thumb drive. This was standard modus operandi. There was no mal intention. There was no vendetta against anyone. We were just enjoying the cultural riches of the music scene. Whenever my groups of friends went to concerts, we paid our fees to get in. Hell, we would drain our piggy banks to get $5 together to go see a local punk band because we enjoyed it and, as I said, we didn't want to screw the artists. If we could, we would buy their $4 demo album at the show but we told the bands we'd just share the CD between us because we couldn't afford better. They never cared.
Then I went to college. I remember reading the piracy rules regarding internet in the dormitories and was confused. Frankly, sharing music never seemed like a big deal to me but here was an official institution claiming that it would expel students if they were caught sharing music. What kind of neo-facist school did I pick to attend? I thought to myself. As I expressed this concern to others, they slowly started telling me, in my happy little ignorance, that it was actually a big deal nationally. This is how I was first informed about music companies suing their own customers for sharing a product that they had previously bought.
Needless to say, my response was WTF mate? What kind of horrible douchebaggery does it take to try to sue someone for sharing something? I mean, crap, I don't get sued by Cottonelle when guests use the toilet paper that I purchased for my home right?
So that was my introduction to the IP wars that are going on in society today. That experience led me to one viable, logical conclusion. The record companies are evil, zealous, cunts that deserve nothing more than to be burned at the stake...or, at least, the bastards in charge of the lawsuit campaigns deserve that. Once I picked up on the fact that, all of the sudden, it was now supposedly morally corrupt to share music with fellow music lovers, I started paying attention. I noticed the public smear campaign that went into convincing the unwashed masses (I tease) that piracy is some moral terror. I watched over the last five years as the general attitude in society went from, "What the hell are people being sued for?" to "What the hell are people downloading and swapping songs for free for?" I have watched a flagrant brainwashing of my fellow man at the hands of a few greedy bastards. For that reason, I despise the record companie
I think you just gave Thinkgeek a new product line.
Governments certainly aren't for forcing a person to do anything, responsible or not. The purpose of a government is to protect its citizenry, not control it.
Redundant? How very odd...
It encourages an evil science and evil men. Evil men grow nice, dark, slicked mustaches. QED, harvesting babies for their stem cells increases the mustache:nonmustache ratio in the world. Therefore, it benefits mankind.
=P
That's okay, if Google wants to know about my porn searching habits I will just sleep at night amused with the knowledge that I made a Google employee uncomfortable that day.
It's easy to have faith in a dollar that is backed by folk with guns and the will to use them.
Robert Pirsig's book Lila (sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, both worth reading) has quite a bit to say about the social implications of Victorian styles of society. Based on the book you just mentioned, you might check out Pirsig's work. It's very interesting.
and you have population of effete, spoiled sheep, ready to accept whatever shackles are imposed, in order that they be safe and comfortable.
Sounds like the Victorian Era.....which effectively ended when said social regime sent millions of young boys to die in the trenches of WWI. Ah what a bright future we have to look forward too =)
I heard that the healthcare bill goes to 11.
I don't know what kind of 11. I don't know if it's 11 pages, 11 years, or 11 reforms.
But hey, it goes to 11. That's gotta be worth something =)
In other words, idiots are solipsists. They roam through the world filtering out everything that impedes upon the image of reality that sits inside their head. It is their fundamental notion that the world is, indeed, nothing more than the physical representation of a supposed ideal, 'truth,' that got lodged in their brains somehow.
The best cure for Solipsism?
A quick peckerslap in the face from reality.
Force a solipsist to repair a piece of machinery that he has not built himself, and now he has to face a strong, unforgiving blow to his ego. Now he must stare uncertainty and even incompetence in the eye and admit, "I don't know."
Force a solipsist to say that, and that mental construct of reality gets shattered. Now they have to fess up to the fact that there is a reality out there, and it doesn't give a damn about what they think about it. This is why I think it is important to teach kids to fix things. Raise a person to learn about, and work on, systems that they did not create, and they are forced to evolve into an intelligent, critical, thinking creature.
There's no path to information that doesn't require a machete and a lot of gumption.
and would totally destroy the organisation and the legitimacy of the organisation
I wasn't aware that any legitimacy was being assigned to organizations of inactive whiners. Wake me when they grow a back bone and a brain.
Can we change the outdated cliche of, "The pen is mightier than the sword," to a more modern version along the lines of, "The twits are mightier than the twats."
The 'twits,' of course, being the tweeters, whilst the 'twats' refers to the governments. =)
That reminds me of a revolution that one of my exgirlfriend's used to always reference to make a point. She always used to tell me about a government in South America (I don't recall what country or the details or anything really) that was effectively toppled by nothing more than a misinformation campaign. Apparently, some sort of freedom fighter movement was convinced not to fight at all by mass published media that spread the information that the opposing forces were glorious and had massive amounts of arms and planes and what not. The sad truth was that the powers that existed actually had a very small defense force that could have easily been toppled by the freedom fighters. However, the misinformation campaign was so successful that it discouraged any type of revolutionary action and, thus, helped create and maintain a regime that really couldn't have existed otherwise. Let's see, some quick googling turns up...
This.
It appears I had it completely ass backwards. The CIA and USIA used a confusion and misinformation campaign to make it seem as if multiple groups of Guatemalan freedom fighters were making successful assaults on various cities and military resources, when, in fact, no such military blitz was occurring. The misinformation broadcast on the radio was enough to confuse the populace and overthrow the Arbenz regime.
So, there you go. I don't know how credible the source is or how biased it is or anything, but it serves, at least, as an interesting parable relating to the power of information. Information brokers really are worth quite a pretty penny. =)
It is in the satellite industry. What do you think you do on spacecraft for power? You either run some kind of fissile material engine for long range mission (past the asteroid belt) or you put solar panels on. If you use solar panels, you need a way to store energy when you are in shadow or when you are reorienting the spacecraft. Thus, you carry batteries. The most significant limiting factor in spacecraft design is mass. Mass costs money. Mass costs performance. Batteries are often one of the, if not the, largest single contributing factors to a given spacecraft mass budget. So, any type of battery that gives you high bang for low mass (i.e. a very energy dense battery) is a game changer for the spacecraft industry. We love to read about R&D on new batteries in the spacecraft industry. In fact, cell phones were one of the biggest beneficial developments in recent society for spacecraft because they spawned a whole new area of long life, low mass batteries.
That said, any news about new batteries is good news for us space geeks. =)
You know, I always wondered about the charge at home paradigm with electric cars. Right now, I drive a gasoline car. This affords me the luxury of not needing to fuel my car at home. As such, I do not need to maintain the infrastructure at home necessary to fuel my car (gas pump). However, the idea of, 'charge your car overnight, at home,' with electric cars is a problem with me. You see, now that means that my place of residence has to be capable of supporting the infrastructure to charge (to fuel) my car. That seems simple as it would simply require an outdoor plug and, perhaps, one more breaker added to my breaker box. Unfortunately though, for me, it's not that simple. I live in a condo complex with a shared parking lot that is a few dozen yards from my unit. There are no outdoor plugs on my condo. I suspect there are quite a few folk in similar positions in apartments, condo's, and maybe even duplexes. Of course, this is a workable problem, and, over time, residencies will evolve to include car charging facilities. However, it just goes to those that the idea of, "Just switch on over to electric," is not as simple or sound as if first seems.
/shrug
Albert Einstein in particular wrote several letters to Franklin Roosevelt urging him to establish nuclear capability before the Germans.[11] These letters, especially one called the Einstein–Szilárd letter (dated August 2, 1939, but not personally received by Roosevelt until October 1939), brought American government attention and support to nuclear research.[12]
Thanks for helping me relearn something today =)
Apathy is death.
- Darth Traya, Knights of the Old Republic II
To safeguard our identity and culture, and to maintain the very existence of our nation, we will immediately put an indefinite moratorium on all immigration......To restore, with civility, the identity and culture of our homeland, we will provide incentives for recent, legal immigrants to return to their respective lands.
Emphasis mine. So, while I may agree with the A3P position regarding space and fiscal responsibility, it appears that this party wants to take an isolationist attitude regarding the American culture. Never mind the fact that some of the greatest minds in America were immigrants. Nevermind the fact that Werner Von Braun was a German born rocket scientist, turned American immigrant, turned leader of the Saturn V program that got our boys to the moon. Never mind the fact that jazz, one of our greatest cultural movements in America, was started by immigrants. Nevermind the fact that Einstein, one of the best known scientists in the world, that contributed significantly to our nuclear supremacy was also a foreign born immigrant. Nevermind all those pesky historical facts that show, time and again, that legal immigration both enriches and strengthens America as a nation. Nah, forget all that, A3P is going to put a ban on ALL immigration. What's more? They are going to start paying legal immigrants to return to their own country. Goodbye knowledgeable Indian, Japanese, and Chinese scientists, programmers, engineers, and technicians. Goodbye Mexican immigrants that provide California with one of its most delicious and plentiful types of food. In fact, goodbye all non-native American people as you, in fact, have descended from immigrants yourself. We real Americans don't need you here.....
Oh wait...
So no, sorry, I am not going to give any credence to a political party that proudly declares white nationalism as one of its creeds and mission goals. The hypocrisy evident in the quote above with regards to immigration and the historical contribution immigrants have made to American technical progress is as thick as it is nauseating. Take your political astroturfing somewhere. I, for one, would rather spend my vote writing in a candidate with absolutely no chance at election (and thus adding one more vote to the count that reduces a possible majority of ANY party) than support that kind of bullshit that A3P is peddling.
Self reply but I found this: List of Private Space Companies
That is a good start in terms of researching this particular subject.
I speculate that socialism is evil locally to you. Please don't extrapolate it to a national scale.
I suspect you missed the mocking/sarcastic tone of the OP's last sentence. Here's a hint, the quote marks around the first, "socialism," tend to imply that.
So, does an aspiring American rocket scientist try to find work in China or hope to get one of the few jobs with Space X, Scaled Composites, or Virgin Galactic?
Or Blue Origin, Armadillo Aerospace, Honeywell, Honeybee, ATK, Lockheed Martin-Boeing ULA, Cape Canaveral Launch ops support, VAFB launch ops support, Japan, India, Brazil, French Guiana, Russia, ... those are just a few places off the top of my head. I have a spreadsheet of possible employers if you would like to see it. Though it is dated about a year or two.