OK, so about ten years ago before my kids were old enough to enter into contracts, I simply had them install my software for me, meaning that no one read and understood the EULA. How are these abominations in any way enforceable??
Well, I've been around the block a few times in the US legal system. Here's the heuristic:
1) Guilt, innocence, and laws don't really matter, because their interpretation is negotiable inside a courtroom
2) Whoever has the better legal team wins
3) In nearly all cases, the better legal team is the more more expensive legal team.
By using the power of this reasoning, you can predict the outcome of legal cases with close to 100% accuracy. Keep in mind that the rich don't always win, because they sometimes miscalculate how much to spend, and nearly all of the spending has to be budgeted up front.
Maybe some races are (in general) mentally inferior to other races.
It's pretty obvious that the smartest Black person is smarter than the dumbest Asian person. And when the difference between individuals within ethnic groups is provably quite a bit larger than the difference between the averages, it's pretty stupid to try to assign roles based on those averages.
But if you really want to work with averages, here's the one you'll need to know:
Racists have a lower average intelligence than non-racist blacks, whites, or hispanics. Racists, of any ethnicity, test lower than non-racists in the same population, and they tend to have less success in their lives. As a group, they are basically stupider than non-racists. In the USA, racists are more likely to be on welfare than non-racists, and more likely to be in prison for petty crimes.
For more information, see the scientific studies of Gordon Hodson and Michael A. Busseri... if you are capable of comprehending them.
I read the intro online, and I see what you mean about not finding his presentation compelling in every paragraph... it's a bit of a roller coaster ride.
I'm afraid so. The requirements and privileges of Roman Citizenship changed over time, so you really can't say anything meaningful about it without providing a time period and contrasting the situation of non-citizens at that same time period.
But the ancient world loved eugenics; in fact pretty much everybody in every time period loves the idea... right up until it gets implemented. After that only the rulers and their lickspittle toadies love it.
Every single person I ever met who complained that "racism is OK when directed against whites" was a person who had clearly received significantly more unearned wealth and privilege than the global norm, and was not starving or oppressed in any significant way, but nonetheless was willing to waste lots of time whining and crying about what a victim he or she was. I've never heard it from a person in real need. I do not believe my experience is significantly different than that of others; I think these people pretty much look like tedious crybabies to everyone.
So when I see such a comment online, that is identical to the tiresome noise I generally see issuing from whining, overprivileged crybabies, I say "hey, you sound like a whining, overprivileged crybaby, and also a racist" because that's what the whining, overprivileged racist crybabies I've met have sounded like.
Is that OK with you? Does basic honesty about what I perceive require some "right and authority", as you put it? Because I don't recognize any such authorities.
Hawaii gets a rather large payout because we blew up some of their islands with nuclear bombs.
Turns out this was a bad deal for almost everyone involved. Certainly a bad deal for the islanders, post-war taxpayers, and the Japanese... but a reasonable bargain at the time.
And yet the Democrats also keep on spewing the hate against anybody who dares to disagree with them or challenge their plans. Imagine that.
When, exactly, did the self-proclaimed liberal Democrat gunman come into your church and try to murder your children? Because that's the bar for hate your team has set. Your people - particularly Ann Coulter - called for violence and hate and Jim David Adkisson answered that call.
I have to say I'm in awe of the of the Knoxville Unitarian Universalists, though. If that had happened in my church I would not have let that man leave the building alive... maybe that's because I'm a registered Republican? The Knoxville UUs held the man for police, and although several of them sacrificed their lives to protect their fellow Americans, nobody there took revenge.
You must be the only person on Earth that would equate the Slashdot hive mind with Fox news.
The similarity's quite striking, whenever nuclear power is mentioned. Look seriously at the many comments claiming that "Greens have made nuclear power unsafe" and "Environmentalists will destroy our way of life" and tell me it's not exactly the same meme mill that Fox grinds. It's really noticeable.
Also, the generalizations are just unfair.
The goal was to be darkly funny, but apparently I missed that mark.
...and I hope it gave you at least a little chuckle, too. I was going for "funny" and not "flamebait".
But I guess the/. nuke fans found my post to be a little too close to the truth? They do seem to be remarkably humorless, so I suppose I was asking for it.
What do you do on a cloudy day with no wind and no waves, in an area where geothermal and hydro are not options? It's going to be dirty or it's going to be nuclear or you need some kind of magical energy storage device that has not been invented yet.
Another excellent point! These mythical things called "batteries" and "fuel cells" do not actually exist - there is no such thing as energy storage. Don't believe the freedom-hating Germans!
NO. I have read every single Slashdot story on nuclear power ever (totally not kidding) and so I know that you must NOT ask the Germans!
See, as I have been frequently told by high-modded, insightful slashdot comments, without nuclear fission we will soon be crouched in our caves, eating raw meat among the shattered remnants of our once-mighty civilization, destroyed by the lack of bountiful and cheap nuclear energy. So I know that has to be the truth, despite what any Germans with their liberal "facts" might have to say.
Furthermore, I have frequently been told by the slashdot hive mind that Greens hate all technology and all forms of energy generation (and, in fact, the few intelligent ones also hate America!). Germany has had a powerful Green party for decades, and has an active sustainability movement with political representation. This proves that Germans are just filthy American-hating Greens who want to take away our God-given right to pollute everything in sight, and they will lie about the fact that they are all starving over there, and shivering in their unheated hovels, because they have foolishly spurned the benefits of nuclear power.
Or, to put it another way, the German reality is not in conformance with the Slashdot/Fox News ideology of nuclear fission, and therefore they must not be heard!
It's the American way. Germans hate us for our freedoms.
The software is always free. What they do is not make their changes free, but the original is still free as ever.
I take it you are not familiar with the 'gated' debacle, then. Sometimes reality is more complex than license ideology.
But anyway, yes, what you've just described is exactly what the GPL is supposed to do. You can make any changes you want, and unless you start distributing or selling the changed version to others you have no obligation to ever disclose those changes, or publish your sources, and the original is of course as free as ever.
I find it odd that you are accusing me of being a zealot considering what I was responding to; the original post said that I, as an author of GPL'ed software, was taking away people's freedoms which is arrant nonsense and personally offensive. I think I'm entitled to react strongly when someone libels me, don't you?
As for infinity, I recommend to you David Foster Wallace's "Everything and More" - a difficult but wonderful book on that subject.
Fortified homes only defend against what you expected to be up against when you built it.
The best defense against crime is availability of good jobs in your area. The best defense against natural disasters is a well integrated community that can pull together when the unexpected inevitably happens.
It seems to me that the ability to "lock up" formerly free software has enabled the worst actors in the global market for computer software to accumulate wealth and power which they have then used to distort the market to the detriment of free software authors. The GPL is a response to this perception.
And frankly, while I support your freedom to release your code under any license you wish (a freedom many BSD people don't seem to like) I find these "GPL tekks away mah freederms" sound bites laughable. You said "it destroys the freedom to select a business model of your choice". What utter tripe.
The copyright laws that empower the GPL (if you choose to use GPL'ed code, instead of doing your own work with the sweat of your own brow) restrict your choices of business model, just like laws against theft, murder and rape do. Comparing restriction of choices to removal of freedom is disingenuous rhetorical grandstanding; do you protest the Earth's gravity restricting your freedom to fly? Do you protest the sun's light restricting your freedom to walk around naked without getting sunburned? Do you protest society restricting your freedom to practice cannibalism and slavery? Your argument is ridiculous; it sounds like you want to steal my work against my will and profit by it, and you're crying because copyright laws will allow me to prosecute you if you try to cheat me.
Use whatever license you choose, but stop pretending anyone ever had a "freedom" to use other people's code in ways the authors have specifically forbidden, and that this fake "freedom" has been taken away. Nothing has been lost except the ability to be an ugly, hypocritical parasite on the hard work of other people - people who are more than willing to share their efforts with the world, as long as the terms are share-and-share-alike, as in the GPL and similar licenses.
Would you drive your car around with the hood welded shut and no lug wrench?
If you insist on keeping important configuration in a ludicrously unreadable binary registry, instead of simple and efficient text files, you aren't going to be able to maintain the box with a general purpose tool like a word processor or text editor. Windows systems pretty much require a registry editor.
It's time to both beef up the communications infrastructure to support reliable operation and to commit to helping your neighbors with access to things like a telephone, should you have one that works, during a major catastrophe.
*whiny spoiled brat voice* But that would cost MONEEEEEEEEEEEY!!! That'd mean we'd have to SPEND money, which means I wouldn't get as much of a bonus this quarteeeeeeeeer! I've got another yacht to buiiiiild! C'mooooooon!
You have brilliantly illuminated the viewpoint, moral character, and intellectual capacities of the leadership of the United States of America.
I can't find anyone willing to chromeplate things any more for love nor money, but I can get any plastic part I want from the local 3dprinter/lasercutter/vacuformer geek.
I don't understand why everything bad that happened under Bush was entirely because of Clinton, but everything bad that happened under Obama was totally and completely Obama's fault.
How does that work? Only Democratic policies have lasting impact, and Republicans are weak reeds, bent by any wind? What's the deal?
I didn't vote for either one of them... maybe you have to drink the Kool-aid to understand. Does the Kool-aid kill brain cells? Pass it over here.
Uh, aren't heat sources like grow lights useful for things other than pot cultivation? Whereas pot smoke is pretty exclusively associated with pot smoking. So that would be your major difference right there, I think.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I've been around the block a few times in the US legal system. Here's the heuristic:
1) Guilt, innocence, and laws don't really matter, because their interpretation is negotiable inside a courtroom
2) Whoever has the better legal team wins
3) In nearly all cases, the better legal team is the more more expensive legal team.
By using the power of this reasoning, you can predict the outcome of legal cases with close to 100% accuracy. Keep in mind that the rich don't always win, because they sometimes miscalculate how much to spend, and nearly all of the spending has to be budgeted up front.
I had trouble with udev 182 and 187 myself, I had no idea they were so widespread.
https://www.google.com/search?q=helicopter+of+abydos&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X
Ancient Egyptian spacecraft & helicopters!
It's pretty obvious that the smartest Black person is smarter than the dumbest Asian person. And when the difference between individuals within ethnic groups is provably quite a bit larger than the difference between the averages, it's pretty stupid to try to assign roles based on those averages.
But if you really want to work with averages, here's the one you'll need to know:
Racists have a lower average intelligence than non-racist blacks, whites, or hispanics. Racists, of any ethnicity, test lower than non-racists in the same population, and they tend to have less success in their lives. As a group, they are basically stupider than non-racists. In the USA, racists are more likely to be on welfare than non-racists, and more likely to be in prison for petty crimes.
For more information, see the scientific studies of Gordon Hodson and Michael A. Busseri... if you are capable of comprehending them.
I read the intro online, and I see what you mean about not finding his presentation compelling in every paragraph... it's a bit of a roller coaster ride.
I'm afraid so. The requirements and privileges of Roman Citizenship changed over time, so you really can't say anything meaningful about it without providing a time period and contrasting the situation of non-citizens at that same time period.
But the ancient world loved eugenics; in fact pretty much everybody in every time period loves the idea... right up until it gets implemented. After that only the rulers and their lickspittle toadies love it.
Wow, you got modded "insightful" despite that last line.
What do you think of the BNP, then? May as well roll with it.
Every single person I ever met who complained that "racism is OK when directed against whites" was a person who had clearly received significantly more unearned wealth and privilege than the global norm, and was not starving or oppressed in any significant way, but nonetheless was willing to waste lots of time whining and crying about what a victim he or she was. I've never heard it from a person in real need. I do not believe my experience is significantly different than that of others; I think these people pretty much look like tedious crybabies to everyone.
So when I see such a comment online, that is identical to the tiresome noise I generally see issuing from whining, overprivileged crybabies, I say "hey, you sound like a whining, overprivileged crybaby, and also a racist" because that's what the whining, overprivileged racist crybabies I've met have sounded like.
Is that OK with you? Does basic honesty about what I perceive require some "right and authority", as you put it? Because I don't recognize any such authorities.
You're both right. You seem reasonably intelligent.
Oh, but now you just look like an overprivileged crybaby; too bad you couldn't stop while you were ahead.
Hawaii gets a rather large payout because we blew up some of their islands with nuclear bombs.
Turns out this was a bad deal for almost everyone involved. Certainly a bad deal for the islanders, post-war taxpayers, and the Japanese... but a reasonable bargain at the time.
Wait, you're still mad at Jimmy Carter?
Get a slashdot ID, you're fun to have around. Seriously.
When, exactly, did the self-proclaimed liberal Democrat gunman come into your church and try to murder your children? Because that's the bar for hate your team has set. Your people - particularly Ann Coulter - called for violence and hate and Jim David Adkisson answered that call.
I have to say I'm in awe of the of the Knoxville Unitarian Universalists, though. If that had happened in my church I would not have let that man leave the building alive... maybe that's because I'm a registered Republican? The Knoxville UUs held the man for police, and although several of them sacrificed their lives to protect their fellow Americans, nobody there took revenge.
The similarity's quite striking, whenever nuclear power is mentioned. Look seriously at the many comments claiming that "Greens have made nuclear power unsafe" and "Environmentalists will destroy our way of life" and tell me it's not exactly the same meme mill that Fox grinds. It's really noticeable.
The goal was to be darkly funny, but apparently I missed that mark.
...and I hope it gave you at least a little chuckle, too. I was going for "funny" and not "flamebait".
But I guess the /. nuke fans found my post to be a little too close to the truth? They do seem to be remarkably humorless, so I suppose I was asking for it.
Another excellent point! These mythical things called "batteries" and "fuel cells" do not actually exist - there is no such thing as energy storage. Don't believe the freedom-hating Germans!
NO. I have read every single Slashdot story on nuclear power ever (totally not kidding) and so I know that you must NOT ask the Germans!
See, as I have been frequently told by high-modded, insightful slashdot comments, without nuclear fission we will soon be crouched in our caves, eating raw meat among the shattered remnants of our once-mighty civilization, destroyed by the lack of bountiful and cheap nuclear energy. So I know that has to be the truth, despite what any Germans with their liberal "facts" might have to say.
Furthermore, I have frequently been told by the slashdot hive mind that Greens hate all technology and all forms of energy generation (and, in fact, the few intelligent ones also hate America!). Germany has had a powerful Green party for decades, and has an active sustainability movement with political representation. This proves that Germans are just filthy American-hating Greens who want to take away our God-given right to pollute everything in sight, and they will lie about the fact that they are all starving over there, and shivering in their unheated hovels, because they have foolishly spurned the benefits of nuclear power.
Or, to put it another way, the German reality is not in conformance with the Slashdot/Fox News ideology of nuclear fission, and therefore they must not be heard!
It's the American way. Germans hate us for our freedoms.
I take it you are not familiar with the 'gated' debacle, then. Sometimes reality is more complex than license ideology.
But anyway, yes, what you've just described is exactly what the GPL is supposed to do. You can make any changes you want, and unless you start distributing or selling the changed version to others you have no obligation to ever disclose those changes, or publish your sources, and the original is of course as free as ever.
I find it odd that you are accusing me of being a zealot considering what I was responding to; the original post said that I, as an author of GPL'ed software, was taking away people's freedoms which is arrant nonsense and personally offensive. I think I'm entitled to react strongly when someone libels me, don't you?
As for infinity, I recommend to you David Foster Wallace's "Everything and More" - a difficult but wonderful book on that subject.
Fortified homes only defend against what you expected to be up against when you built it.
The best defense against crime is availability of good jobs in your area. The best defense against natural disasters is a well integrated community that can pull together when the unexpected inevitably happens.
It seems to me that the ability to "lock up" formerly free software has enabled the worst actors in the global market for computer software to accumulate wealth and power which they have then used to distort the market to the detriment of free software authors. The GPL is a response to this perception.
And frankly, while I support your freedom to release your code under any license you wish (a freedom many BSD people don't seem to like) I find these "GPL tekks away mah freederms" sound bites laughable. You said "it destroys the freedom to select a business model of your choice". What utter tripe.
The copyright laws that empower the GPL (if you choose to use GPL'ed code, instead of doing your own work with the sweat of your own brow) restrict your choices of business model, just like laws against theft, murder and rape do. Comparing restriction of choices to removal of freedom is disingenuous rhetorical grandstanding; do you protest the Earth's gravity restricting your freedom to fly? Do you protest the sun's light restricting your freedom to walk around naked without getting sunburned? Do you protest society restricting your freedom to practice cannibalism and slavery? Your argument is ridiculous; it sounds like you want to steal my work against my will and profit by it, and you're crying because copyright laws will allow me to prosecute you if you try to cheat me.
Use whatever license you choose, but stop pretending anyone ever had a "freedom" to use other people's code in ways the authors have specifically forbidden, and that this fake "freedom" has been taken away. Nothing has been lost except the ability to be an ugly, hypocritical parasite on the hard work of other people - people who are more than willing to share their efforts with the world, as long as the terms are share-and-share-alike, as in the GPL and similar licenses.
You misspelled "debacle".
Keep trying!
Would you drive your car around with the hood welded shut and no lug wrench?
If you insist on keeping important configuration in a ludicrously unreadable binary registry, instead of simple and efficient text files, you aren't going to be able to maintain the box with a general purpose tool like a word processor or text editor. Windows systems pretty much require a registry editor.
You have brilliantly illuminated the viewpoint, moral character, and intellectual capacities of the leadership of the United States of America.
No more need be said.
I can't find anyone willing to chromeplate things any more for love nor money, but I can get any plastic part I want from the local 3dprinter/lasercutter/vacuformer geek.
I don't understand why everything bad that happened under Bush was entirely because of Clinton, but everything bad that happened under Obama was totally and completely Obama's fault.
How does that work? Only Democratic policies have lasting impact, and Republicans are weak reeds, bent by any wind? What's the deal?
I didn't vote for either one of them... maybe you have to drink the Kool-aid to understand. Does the Kool-aid kill brain cells? Pass it over here.
Uh, aren't heat sources like grow lights useful for things other than pot cultivation? Whereas pot smoke is pretty exclusively associated with pot smoking. So that would be your major difference right there, I think.