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User: muonman

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Comments · 72

  1. Re:One Suspect Dead on One Boston Marathon Bomb Suspect Dead, Other At Large After Shootout With Police · · Score: 1

    The crew of a Panzer V facing Shermans in Normandy in 1944 might disagree with you.

  2. Re:It's almost as if... on Windows Media Center Restricts Cable TV · · Score: 1

    You're only half right. Certainly the MAFIAA are guilty as hell, but remember that M$ have
    only two arrows left in their quiver to forstall their inevitable defeat by free software:
    Patents and DRM.

    The 'patents' arrow is pretty flimsy, and looking at vista, it is apparent that they have
    jumped onto the DRM train wholeheartedly and with both feet. After years of work on vista
    they threw out almost everything that might have been revolutionary and put all their effort
    into making vista indispensable for using DRM'd content.

    So M$ is not just following the MAFIAA on DRM, they are fighting for survival and are
    full partners in this unholy alliance.

  3. Re:Cue oft-used Leia quote... on AACS Vows to Fight Bloggers · · Score: 1

    Congratulations! You are the first /. poster to 'get it right' (well, almost). Amid all the mindless yammering that's been going on since the 'content industry' has been trying to stifle speech/press, no one else has pointed out that inspite of anything Congress or the Supreme Court says, the Constitution is still the supreme law of the land, and it says unequivocally:
    1. Only Congress can make (federal) laws, and their laws cannot abridge speech/press.
    2. The Courts can only 'decide cases'.
    3. So we don't need to wait for the S'premes to declare a law unconstitutional, because if it abridges free speech/press it was never a law to start with.
    4. Neither the Congress nor the Courts have the power to decide the definition of Speech/Press, because doing so would a priori abridge the freedom thereof.
    5. And don't get me started on the fact that copyright/patent protections is constitutionally available only to the respective author/inventor anyway, so explain to me how a corporation can author/invent anything or have copyrights/patents transferred to it!

    So my only quibble with your post, is that the 1st Amendment clearly has no 'except' clause in it, which means that copyright/patents questions (and kiddie porn too, not to put too fine a point on it) are just as subject to protection as anything else.

    So quote away verbatim to your hearts content. Of course, when the corrupt/ignorant authorities take you to task and pummel you into dirt, you can smile and say 'they know not what they do'.

  4. Re:Of course it's illegal on MPAA Fires Back at AACS Decryption Utility · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Perhaps because the wording of the First Amendment makes it very clear that the DMCA is illegal.

    Of course, YMMV.

  5. Re:Economy on Vista Zero-Day Exploit For Sale · · Score: 1

    A 'true' libertarian (of which there are none) believes that
    limitation on stockholder liability, which constitutes the key
    component of capitalism, is an unnecessary and improper intrusion
    by the government into the societal infrastructure.

  6. Re:The ideal copyright system... on UK Report Suggests Tougher Copyright Laws · · Score: 1

    It is supremely ironic that the 'modifications' you suggest
    to improve copyright law are precisely those that would
    be forced by a careful reading of the U.S. Constitution.

  7. Re:Trust us! We're the government! on Judge Rules NSA Wiretapping Unconstitutional · · Score: 1

    The best that you should infer about your 'position', ms. Coulter, from the
    absence of refuting argument, is that, if it were reviewed by Wolfgang Pauli,
    he might have remarked that it is 'not even wrong'.

  8. Evolution and the USA on Did Humans Evolve? No, Say Americans · · Score: 1

    What do you expect from a country in which
    nearly half the voting public voted for G.W. Bush
    for president TWICE!

  9. Re:21 comments later.... on Blue Ring Around Uranus · · Score: 2, Funny

    The problem in British pronunciation is that it sounds like 'urine-ous' which
    is still unfortunate, so you can't win.

    In either case I blame Tidy-Bowl.

  10. Re:Free speech on Lynn Settles With Cisco, Investigated By FBI · · Score: 1

    .... Keep in mind that the 1st Amendment is not an absolute protection against saying anything, anytime, anywhere. The classic example is shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre...

    Please post your copy of the first amendment which lists that exception. All copies I can find don't show it.

    If your copy doesn't show it either, then perhaps either you are wrong, or America doesnt really have a Constutution after all, but instead has a nine-headed Pope!

    In the latter case, don't forget to include the part about kiddy porn, and copyright, and anything else you feel particularly strongly about.

  11. Re:Where did that come from? on Completing BitTorrent Decentralization · · Score: 1

    You search for a public SHAxxx file for the same which can be decrypted by Linus' private key, and
    compare.

    The problem thus reduces to being sure you have the
    correct public key,,, which is addressed by the 'web of trust' ala PGP, and is a separate question.

  12. Re:Honest question on Maureen O'Gara No Longer Welcome at LinuxWorld · · Score: 1

    Thank you for posting the link to the Google cache.
    I had been curious to find a way to read the article
    without lending any clicks to it, and had forgotten about the Google cache solution.

  13. Re:Blank Reg on U.S. National Identity Cards All But Law · · Score: 1

    It is utterly amazing the lengths to which neoconfederates will go to rationalize their history.

    Even the most cursory study of the history of the period should convince you that there was one issue and one issue only which had the power to force both sizes to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of their youth to the conflict.

    That issue was not some abstruse cerebral principle or minor difference of viewpoint, it was first and always: SLAVERY!

    When are you going to ealize that your ancestors dug a great big hole for themselves and you their posterity, and staying in it isn't going to accomplish anything but to make you look stupid. Admit your ancestors' mistakes, climb out of your pit of denial and join the rest of us as members of the human race.

  14. Re:Not in Kansa (anymore) on Ditching Microsoft Could Save Education Millions · · Score: 1

    ...As an average person from Kansas...

    Recent evidence suggests that all people in Kansas are below average.

  15. Re:Another giant step backward... on The Pseudoscience of Intelligent Design · · Score: 1

    The grandparent got it right. The neocons are exploiting the ignorance of the fundamentalists. The neocons' power base is not that small, especially in financial terms, since it consists of 'Corporate America'.

    The way to tell who's exploiting whom is to see who gets the 'real' legislation. The fundamentalists get thrown crumbs, and the corporates get the real benefits. This school board crap is just one of the crumbs.

    The sad part of all this is that the fundamentalist foolishness would be seen as what it is and die a well deserved death, if their corporate buddies didn't manipulate the press to make it seem as though they had a real case, which attracts the non-fundamentalist ignorant to give them credence which can be exploited for neocon votes.

  16. Re:For St Peter's sake on U.S. Rejects Canadian Rejection of DMCA · · Score: 2, Funny

    That would be perfect. Hillary president... and you dead.

  17. Re:Oh dear on Copy-and-Paste Reveals Classified U.S. Documents · · Score: 1

    What is this 'War' to which you allude? Did Congress declare war on someone and I missed it?

  18. Re:Examples? on World Intellectual Property Day · · Score: 3, Funny

    I think you have just given the World's Best Reason for eliminating copyright.

  19. Re:Where is the problem? on The Linux Modem Problem? · · Score: 1

    If anyone can point to a source of modems that can reasonably be expected to work with Linux, I imagine we could pay up to $5 + $4 or even more and still be happy.

    I didn't mention that the $5 license has very strict limitations, as well (k-12 only...), so we have a
    need even if the modems cost more, but the difficulty is finding a reliable source of them whatever they are.

  20. Re:And they get Predictable results with Win98? on The Linux Modem Problem? · · Score: 1

    Yes, the $4 includes windows driver, and they
    seem to work.

    I actually have experimented with several distros, including Mepis, but the problem is a little more general than that. Some distros may include proprietary drivers but that wont solve our problem.

  21. Re:ermm. on The Linux Modem Problem? · · Score: 1

    I'd be more than happy with that solution. The trouble is, I have no way of knowing whether the $6 modem will actually work, and the proprietor has to buy them in quantity to get the price, so I'm afraid they will get stuck with $5 + $2 expense per box, instead of $2 - $5, if you follow.

    The bottom line is being able to be SURE that the modems you buy will actually work! Hence the query.

  22. Re:Go Poland on Poland Blocks European Software Patent Vote, For Now · · Score: 1

    In other words, I think what you're saying is:
    A few years ago, many Poles relocated to America... and raised the average IQ of both countries.

  23. Re:Go Poland on Poland Blocks European Software Patent Vote, For Now · · Score: 1
    ...Granted in the whole scheme of things, that first one might have been a little more important

    . We (the good guys) won the first one. We could easily still lose the current one.

    The one we lose will be the more important.

  24. Re:Gnome has screen reading support on New Technology for the Blind? · · Score: 1

    I have experimented with Gnopernicus, and can make it do a few things, but have not been able to actually use it.

    I have also not been able to locate a community of users on the web.

    Do you know of anyone who has actually made it work?

    That would be a Godsend to my efforts to bring Linux to my local Commission for the Blind.

  25. Re:Even more BS on Verizon-Pushed WiFi Bill Becomes Law in PA · · Score: 1
    "...Get your head out of your ass. Private enterprise and PROFIT is everywhere. It's why the west is number one today...."

    And It's why China will be number one tomorrow.