I don't see a problem with creating a virtual tower and airplane... Maybe we should have a virtual reality world where you can blow yourself up and be reborn in heaven. If it is addictive enough it may curb real life terrorism.
I'd like to see the actual study to see how they can possibly do this comparison. Frankly, it makes no sense what so ever, unless smoking causes violence (along with video games) or video games cause lung cancer. These "news" articles say that video games are as great a threat as smoking. WTF does that mean? Threat to whom and why? Pure FUD. I don't see why this was even posted.
This is why I like being a contractor, we get paid by the hour. If you are salaried and have a non substantial share of the company, you are getting screwed by the people making a ton of money from your labor. I think it is fair to at least be compensated for the (often tremendous) over time worked by IT and Programmers.
There is no way to stop piracy, period. The real frightening undertone to this is the fact that the RIAA and MPAA lobbyists are actively trying to criminalize copyright infringement to such a level that would imprison people. This would be disastrous, and for this and other reasons I am thinking about moving to a sensible country where the laws are created by the people and not corporations. If you aren't concerned, take a look at laws proposed by our attorney general http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9719339-7.html/, and past sentences: http://p2pfreak.com/warez-leader-faces-10-years-in -jail/. Now that Gonzales was found to be a moronic hack, I doubt they will be implemented during this presidency, but likely they will in the future. Soon this country really will consist mainly of prisons and churches.
I agree with his statement that linux should be desired for its own strengths. The linux community should also not try to create a cheap windows clone, but I don't see this happening. As for wine, if they are using ubuntu you should just be able to add the source to apt and install it anyway, so who cares.
Some technology can definetly be detrimental to our society.
For example, I am working indirectly for the Missle Defense project. The average person might say, "Great, now we can be protected from all of the rogue long range nuclear missles out there."
The problem here is that we had to break the ABM treaty to even begin development on it. How probable would it be for a terrorist to get ahold of a long range ICBM? You can't just launch these out of your back yard. Missle defense would essentially nullify the whole idea of mutual destruction. I believe that this system could lead to a break-down in international relations, and tip the ballance of world power even more to the US.
This is wonderful if you believe in the absolute goodness of the US. You can say god blesses us all you want, but the proof is in the pudding. Look at all the wars in the last century, and who benefited from them. We benefited by being able to drive our SUV's around longer, but the people we "liberated," or saved from communism (if still alive) didn't benefit much. The rich became richer, and so on.
How about switching to a subsidized economy based on helping people, instead of defending ourselves before the evil doers can strike? How about stopping terrorists by not giving them reasons to fight? Don't buy the idea that the terrorist motivation is from being envious of our SUVs and McDonalds on every street corner.
America seems to have roughly three or four political positions.
1. Conservatives: I think they are whimpy libretarians, who perhaps realize that government is at least partialy needed to keep our rights from being trampled. Or perhaps they feel exactly the oposite. Less government may mean more freedom, but why do conservatives push restrictive laws? The point is that my money is mine, and the government has no right in the huge amount it takes from me. ---- Greed, plain and simple. Granted, the government may not be as thrifty as it could be, so there is room for improvement.
2. Liberals: Government can be useful to its people. If big business is infringing upon our rights, do something. Either with laws, organize(unions), whatever. Take an active involvement in whats happening.
3. Apathetic: These people are growing and growing all the time. There is nothing we can do, I can't change government. As long as there is MTV, movies and Britney Spears who cares. --- This is a sure sign of a growing sickness faceing America, probably the sign of a dramatic change coming in the future. (Revolution, Dictatorship, or possible Anarchy)
Well this whole article seemed to miss the point entirely. My.mp3.com allows you to listen to your CD's. You cannot simply listen to any copyrighted music they have available, only what you have in YOUR CD collection, for the beamit software samples the CD to make sure it is genuine.
Of course there are ways to get around this. You could copy your friends CD's and then beam them onto my.mp3.com, but then YOU are doing the copyright violation not my.mp3.com. You can borrow your friend's CD's and beam them directly, no copying or whatever. But this would be the same as if you made the mp3's yourself, so YOU made the copyright violation, not my.mp3.com.
My.mp3.com is a great service allowing you to listen to your music where ever you wish, without needing to take your CD's along with you. It is not some way to gain access to multitudes of free music. My.mp3.com is also FREE so they aren't making money directly from copyrighted material. For some reason that's what I thought this article was going to be about. Probably no one will read this post anyway.
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I don't see a problem with creating a virtual tower and airplane... Maybe we should have a virtual reality world where you can blow yourself up and be reborn in heaven. If it is addictive enough it may curb real life terrorism.
I'd like to see the actual study to see how they can possibly do this comparison. Frankly, it makes no sense what so ever, unless smoking causes violence (along with video games) or video games cause lung cancer. These "news" articles say that video games are as great a threat as smoking. WTF does that mean? Threat to whom and why? Pure FUD. I don't see why this was even posted.
This is why I like being a contractor, we get paid by the hour. If you are salaried and have a non substantial share of the company, you are getting screwed by the people making a ton of money from your labor. I think it is fair to at least be compensated for the (often tremendous) over time worked by IT and Programmers.
There is no way to stop piracy, period. The real frightening undertone to this is the fact that the RIAA and MPAA lobbyists are actively trying to criminalize copyright infringement to such a level that would imprison people. This would be disastrous, and for this and other reasons I am thinking about moving to a sensible country where the laws are created by the people and not corporations. If you aren't concerned, take a look at laws proposed by our attorney general http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9719339-7.html/, and past sentences: http://p2pfreak.com/warez-leader-faces-10-years-in -jail/. Now that Gonzales was found to be a moronic hack, I doubt they will be implemented during this presidency, but likely they will in the future. Soon this country really will consist mainly of prisons and churches.
I agree with his statement that linux should be desired for its own strengths. The linux community should also not try to create a cheap windows clone, but I don't see this happening. As for wine, if they are using ubuntu you should just be able to add the source to apt and install it anyway, so who cares.
Some technology can definetly be detrimental to our society.
For example, I am working indirectly for the Missle Defense project. The average person might say, "Great, now we can be protected from all of the rogue long range nuclear missles out there."
The problem here is that we had to break the ABM treaty to even begin development on it. How probable would it be for a terrorist to get ahold of a long range ICBM? You can't just launch these out of your back yard. Missle defense would essentially nullify the whole idea of mutual destruction. I believe that this system could lead to a break-down in international relations, and tip the ballance of world power even more to the US.
This is wonderful if you believe in the absolute goodness of the US. You can say god blesses us all you want, but the proof is in the pudding. Look at all the wars in the last century, and who benefited from them. We benefited by being able to drive our SUV's around longer, but the people we "liberated," or saved from communism (if still alive) didn't benefit much. The rich became richer, and so on.
How about switching to a subsidized economy based on helping people, instead of defending ourselves before the evil doers can strike? How about stopping terrorists by not giving them reasons to fight? Don't buy the idea that the terrorist motivation is from being envious of our SUVs and McDonalds on every street corner.
America seems to have roughly three or four political positions.
1. Conservatives: I think they are whimpy libretarians, who perhaps realize that government is at least partialy needed to keep our rights from being trampled. Or perhaps they feel exactly the oposite. Less government may mean more freedom, but why do conservatives push restrictive laws? The point is that my money is mine, and the government has no right in the huge amount it takes from me. ---- Greed, plain and simple. Granted, the government may not be as thrifty as it could be, so there is room for improvement.
2. Liberals: Government can be useful to its people. If big business is infringing upon our rights, do something. Either with laws, organize(unions), whatever. Take an active involvement in whats happening.
3. Apathetic: These people are growing and growing all the time. There is nothing we can do, I can't change government. As long as there is MTV, movies and Britney Spears who cares. --- This is a sure sign of a growing sickness faceing America, probably the sign of a dramatic change coming in the future. (Revolution, Dictatorship, or possible Anarchy)
4. I choose Anarchy, but I'll vote Nader, :)
Well this whole article seemed to miss the point entirely. My.mp3.com allows you to listen to your CD's. You cannot simply listen to any copyrighted music they have available, only what you have in YOUR CD collection, for the beamit software samples the CD to make sure it is genuine.
Of course there are ways to get around this. You could copy your friends CD's and then beam them onto my.mp3.com, but then YOU are doing the copyright violation not my.mp3.com. You can borrow your friend's CD's and beam them directly, no copying or whatever. But this would be the same as if you made the mp3's yourself, so YOU made the copyright violation, not my.mp3.com.
My.mp3.com is a great service allowing you to listen to your music where ever you wish, without needing to take your CD's along with you. It is not some way to gain access to multitudes of free music. My.mp3.com is also FREE so they aren't making money directly from copyrighted material. For some reason that's what I thought this article was going to be about. Probably no one will read this post anyway.