There are 216 people running for president. Only 2 have a hope in hell of winning.
If these two were not running, which of the other 214 candidates would you vote for? (Surely *one* of these 214 would be at least as good as Gush and Bore)
Nader?
Hagelin?
Browne?
Buchannon?
McReynolds?
If John McCain or Jesse Ventura were running, would you vote for them?
Except that with insurace, you are betting that something bad is going to happen.
You bet that you're going to die, or you bet that your house is going to burn down.
Imagine going to Vegas and betting $100 that you are going to get hit by a truck when you walk out the door. Something about insurace has always seemed weird to me... betting on an outcome that you don't desire? hmmm...
When Steve returned, Apple was 3 weeks away from Chapter 11 (nobody knew how bad things really were). He rescued the company from certain death. Sometimes when you do CPR, you break a few ribs. Better to be alive and have a few broken ribs, no?
Napster represents a fundamental shift in our economic system that has been in the making for many years.
Our economic system is bassed on scarcity. Basically, as long as there is not an unlimited supply of something, it has value. This works very well for physical objects like pork bellies and RAM chips. Unfortunately (or fortunately), this system falls apart in the virtual world. There is no scarcity... there is an unlimited supply, so the laws of supply and demand don't apply.
The RIAA (and MPAA, and SPA) are trying to apply real world economics to the virtual world, and this round peg won't fit in the square hole, no matter how hard they hammer.
I've already read several flames from people who don't think that this is a good cause, and Slashdot should not be wasting our time with non-Linux stuff. To the critics I can only say grow up.
The world is filled with good causes... thousands of them. There are hundreds of endangered species, people dying of diseases and starving in almost every part of the world, and we are destroying our environment in so many different ways. It would be impossible -- even in a community the size of Slashdot -- to even begin to address these problems. We can, however, do our small part to help with one of them. The penguin is our mascot, and that makes it as good a cause as any to get behind.
Even if you don't help save the penguins, you can give a dollar to a homeless guy, or buy an acre of land in the rainforest, or give to the American (or Canadian) Cancer Society. The point is, do something. As a collection of individuals with above average intelligence, we have a responsibility to this world to do something, anything, to make it just a little bit better.
Most believe that capitalism is an important part of democracy. I would suggest that in fact, capitalism is the *opposite* of democracy.
Where capitalism is the concentration of the wealth and power in the hands of a few elite, democracy is about giving everyone an equal say. For that reason, pure democracy and pure capitalism are incompatible.
But the only alternative to capitalism is communism, you shout. I would argue that view of the world is too limited. There are more then two different ways to arrange an economy, maybe we should be more open-minded about different economic systems.
What is evil about communism is not the principle of everyone being equal, in fact that idea is very compatible with democracy. The problem with communism is, and always has been, that in attempting to achieve equality, it creates a society that ends up being just the opposite, namely a totalitarian regime.
Think of it not as a left to right spectrum, not even as an 'X', as libertarians would have you believe. There are in fact *3* axes on the spectrum: Totalitarianism vs. Anarchy, Market Force Capitalism vs. Forced Equality Communism, and on the 3rd axis, Utopia vs. Conflict. Democracy is halfway between Totalitarianism and Anarchy, and Socialism halfway between Communism and Capitalism.
The two main political parties would have you believe its a very simple 'us vs. them', left and right. As Steve Jobs would say: Think Different about politics. and vote different... please... *anyone* other than the same Republicrats over and over again.
...is to assign one to a class of college math students, without telling them that its never been solved before. Tell them it is required that they solve this problem for some percentage of their final grade. Some will stay up all night, but in a class of 400 students, 1 might get it.
Its amazing what a human mind can do when its not aware of what is impossible.
How secure is the location where the servers are located? Are they in a nuke-proof bunker? You might think this is a joke, but what if someone posts government secrets to Slashdot and the Secret Service (or whoever...) decides to pull a Steve Jackson on Andover HQ? How would Slashdot stay up? Is there a mirror at another location ready to go up at a moment's notice? Would any of the authors not arrested post notice to Slashcode.org? I must sound really paranoid, but this is the kind of contingency plan that needs to be considered if Slashdot is to become the flag bearer for Free Speech around the world.
Personally I think it comes down to society and what the people want. Maybe in 30 years, a geek will run for president in the US and be elected.
A geek is running for president! Al Gore was a social outcast in school, has done a bit of programming, hell he even invented the Internet (I know... not really, but he helped bring it to the mainstream...) Whatever you think of his other politics, he is a geek in every traditional sense of the word.
This isn't about a persons right to profit from their crime, its about free speech!
Mitnick is on the lecture circuit, and even if he were doing it for free, they would still try to shut him up.
My suggestion to Mitnick: Stay on the lecture circuit, but donate the proifits to a charity which provides for the legal defense of people charged with technology related crimes. (Or some other good cause, related to this issue).
Any attempt to shut him up then would be a clean violation of his right to free speech.
Straight from the source code of www.democrats.org
The only slightly controversial word here might be "gay", but personally, I find the words "Rush Limbaugh" to be much more offensive.
"keywords" content="Democratic National Committee, Democrat, Democratic Party, Working Families, President Clinton, Vice President Gore, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, White House, Hillary Clinton, Tipper Gore, Roy Romer, Joe Andrew, Loretta Sanchez, Dennis Archer, The Presidency, President, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt, fairness, equality, civil rights, Jesse Jackson, Richard Gephardt, Tom Daschle, voting rights, environment, education, teachers, minimum wage, balanced budget, safe schools, community policing, women, liberal, gay, lesbian, african-american, latino, native american, asian american, politics, political, news, political sites, convention, Republican National Committee, RNC, Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, Trent Lott, Rush Limbaugh, George Bush, Ronald Reagan"
This *is* interesting or insightful, but wont get moderated as such because you have directly addressed the moderators. I know that when I moderate, I ignore any posts which make any reference to moderation. (Unless they are obvious trolls asking to be moderated down.)
How much cash does Microsoft have in the bank. The stock plunged today, knocking down Bill's net worth by about 10%, but if Judge Jackson were to impose a fine, how much would it have to be to make a difference? 10 Billion? 50 Billion? And where should that money go? Customers? Compertitors?
I think it would be great if every Microsoft Customer recieved a cheque for $100 or $500:-) Is that realistic?
What about paying down the national debt? A fine that big could make a big dent in the debt, maybe pay for some poor kids to learn to surf the net (on Macs running Netscape of course).
What do you think? Slashdot is a large collection of brains, what good ideas are out there?
Apple makes its money from selling boxes. They are (and always have been) a hardware company. When they deluded themselves into the thinking they were a software company the (non-) result was Copeland, the now dead predecessor to OS X.
Because they have focused the business plan on hardware, they can open up the software, make it free (as in speech *and* beer) eventually. They will still make the best hardware to run it, and the end result is that they sell more beige (or bondi blue, or tangerine, or graphite) boxes.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The judge in the Microsoft antitrust case has, in order to permit more time for settlement talks, delayed for a week or more his decision on whether the company broke the nation's antitrust laws, sources said Tuesday.
Sources familiar with the case said there is no fixed time on the delay while the government and Microsoft negotiators continue to talk, but that it will be a week or more.
In another post here, it was suggested that geeks need a geek manifesto to rally around. The problem being that geeks will disagree on most issues. I am calling upon the great Slashdot masses to answer the following challenge: Write a geek manifesto to address the concerns of geeks. The basic premise might be that "Technology, applied in an *intelligent* way, can be used to solve alot of problems..."
If most geeks are humanists (I have no idea if they are) then we could borrow a bit from the humanist manifesto, and if there are alot of socialist geeks (again... no idea) we might borrow a word or two from Mr. Marx (Karl, not Groucho)
Consumer Advocate Ralph Nader is running for president. He has been largely ignored by the mainstream media, even though his views are fairly mainstream (a wee bit to the left of Bill Bradley...). CNN interviewed Pat Buchannon, who is more extreme to the right wing than Nader is to the left, but the mainstream media works with the establishment to keep outsiders out. Thats why only a Democrat or Republican will ever be president.
Slashdot could work to change this... in a big way. If we unite as a force of change, it may be possible to introduce some diversity into the presidential race. Slashdot as a whole should endorse a candidate (decided by the slashdot poll), which everyone on Slashdot will work to get elected. Obviously we would become one of those special interest groups, but one which is composed of individuals who all have a say in the collective policies that we support.
Slashdot polls on all the major issues, and with our sheer numbers, we would be able to influence the campaign platform of our selected candidate. I put forward the name of Ralph Nader only because he happens to be the candidate that I support, but it could just as easily be David McReynolds, or anyone, other than Bush or Gore.
OK... there are lots of problems with this... The one that affected me when I was in Computer Science was the total lack of Female bodies in my classes.
This can only get worse in a degree program that focuses on gaming. So what's a geek to do? Transfer to Geography. Well not quite Geography. I'm now in the second year of a 4 year degree in Media, Information, Technoculture and Geography, and I'm happy to say that the ratio if guys to girls is much better. What is a geek doing in Media and Geography?
Its all about the information. Media and Information science is about who controls the information and where its at. Its a new program at the University of Western Ontario.
Why Geography? I like flight sims.;-)
GIS (Geographical Information Systems) is one of the most data intensive applications there is. Its all about crunching big numbers and making sense of them.
The 4 years you spend at University will be the one time in your life when you will be surrounded by people your own age of the opposite gender. Why waste by taking courses with other male geeks, where there is so much geekyness in so many other fields? Open your mind... Explore the possibilities... (Try a Marijuana Cookie... ) =)
i still want that physical representation of the music with the little booklet and the lyrics and all that stuff
Regardless of where the industry goes, the physical booklet with lyrics will eventually make way for artist's web sites, which can hold infinitely more information than the little booklet. A good example of this is Moxy Fruvous
They have the lyrics to all the songs they ever recorded at their web site, as well as tour dates, fan info, and tons of other stuff. If we are still buying physical media (CDs or their descendents) in 10 years, the enclosed booklet will simply contain a URL, with all the info, including lyrics, at the web site.
(BTW, any other Fruvous fans out there? Former Fruvous fans?)
Slashdot Mirror
There are 216 people running for president. Only 2 have a hope in hell of winning.
If these two were not running, which of the other 214 candidates would you vote for? (Surely *one* of these 214 would be at least as good as Gush and Bore)
Nader?
Hagelin?
Browne?
Buchannon?
McReynolds?
If John McCain or Jesse Ventura were running, would you vote for them?
Except that with insurace, you are betting that something bad is going to happen.
You bet that you're going to die, or you bet that your house is going to burn down.
Imagine going to Vegas and betting $100 that you are going to get hit by a truck when you walk out the door. Something about insurace has always seemed weird to me... betting on an outcome that you don't desire? hmmm...
You forgot:
SAVE THE COMPANY FROM DEATH.
When Steve returned, Apple was 3 weeks away from Chapter 11 (nobody knew how bad things really were). He rescued the company from certain death. Sometimes when you do CPR, you break a few ribs. Better to be alive and have a few broken ribs, no?
>> "how is this corporate brainwashing any better?"
> Pepsi Co has no gulag.
No, but Nike does.
Napster represents a fundamental shift in our economic system that has been in the making for many years.
Our economic system is bassed on scarcity. Basically, as long as there is not an unlimited supply of something, it has value. This works very well for physical objects like pork bellies and RAM chips. Unfortunately (or fortunately), this system falls apart in the virtual world. There is no scarcity... there is an unlimited supply, so the laws of supply and demand don't apply.
The RIAA (and MPAA, and SPA) are trying to apply real world economics to the virtual world, and this round peg won't fit in the square hole, no matter how hard they hammer.
Any economists out there?
The world is filled with good causes... thousands of them. There are hundreds of endangered species, people dying of diseases and starving in almost every part of the world, and we are destroying our environment in so many different ways. It would be impossible -- even in a community the size of Slashdot -- to even begin to address these problems. We can, however, do our small part to help with one of them. The penguin is our mascot, and that makes it as good a cause as any to get behind.
Even if you don't help save the penguins, you can give a dollar to a homeless guy, or buy an acre of land in the rainforest, or give to the American (or Canadian) Cancer Society. The point is, do something. As a collection of individuals with above average intelligence, we have a responsibility to this world to do something, anything, to make it just a little bit better.
Most believe that capitalism is an important part of democracy. I would suggest that in fact, capitalism is the *opposite* of democracy.
Where capitalism is the concentration of the wealth and power in the hands of a few elite, democracy is about giving everyone an equal say. For that reason, pure democracy and pure capitalism are incompatible.
But the only alternative to capitalism is communism, you shout. I would argue that view of the world is too limited. There are more then two different ways to arrange an economy, maybe we should be more open-minded about different economic systems.
What is evil about communism is not the principle of everyone being equal, in fact that idea is very compatible with democracy. The problem with communism is, and always has been, that in attempting to achieve equality, it creates a society that ends up being just the opposite, namely a totalitarian regime.
Think of it not as a left to right spectrum, not even as an 'X', as libertarians would have you believe. There are in fact *3* axes on the spectrum: Totalitarianism vs. Anarchy, Market Force Capitalism vs. Forced Equality Communism, and on the 3rd axis, Utopia vs. Conflict.
Democracy is halfway between Totalitarianism and Anarchy, and Socialism halfway between Communism and Capitalism.
The two main political parties would have you believe its a very simple 'us vs. them', left and right. As Steve Jobs would say: Think Different about politics. and vote different... please... *anyone* other than the same Republicrats over and over again.
...is to assign one to a class of college math students, without telling them that its never been solved before. Tell them it is required that they solve this problem for some percentage of their final grade. Some will stay up all night, but in a class of 400 students, 1 might get it.
Its amazing what a human mind can do when its not aware of what is impossible.
How secure is the location where the servers are located?
Are they in a nuke-proof bunker?
You might think this is a joke, but what if someone posts government secrets to Slashdot and the Secret Service (or whoever...) decides to pull a Steve Jackson on Andover HQ?
How would Slashdot stay up? Is there a mirror at another location ready to go up at a moment's notice? Would any of the authors not arrested post notice to Slashcode.org?
I must sound really paranoid, but this is the kind of contingency plan that needs to be considered if Slashdot is to become the flag bearer for Free Speech around the world.
Personally I think it comes down to society and what the people want. Maybe in 30 years, a geek will run for president in the US and be elected.
A geek is running for president! Al Gore was a social outcast in school, has done a bit of programming, hell he even invented the Internet (I know... not really, but he helped bring it to the mainstream...) Whatever you think of his other politics, he is a geek in every traditional sense of the word.
> Maybe change some words, like "though" to "tho", and things like that...
That be DoublePlusUnGood.
This isn't about a persons right to profit from their crime, its about free speech!
Mitnick is on the lecture circuit, and even if he were doing it for free, they would still try to shut him up.
My suggestion to Mitnick: Stay on the lecture circuit, but donate the proifits to a charity which provides for the legal defense of people charged with technology related crimes. (Or some other good cause, related to this issue).
Any attempt to shut him up then would be a clean violation of his right to free speech.
Straight from the source code of www.democrats.org
The only slightly controversial word here might be "gay", but personally, I find the words "Rush Limbaugh" to be much more offensive.
"keywords" content="Democratic National Committee, Democrat, Democratic Party, Working Families, President Clinton, Vice President Gore, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, White House, Hillary Clinton, Tipper Gore, Roy Romer, Joe Andrew, Loretta Sanchez, Dennis Archer, The Presidency, President, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt, fairness, equality, civil rights, Jesse Jackson, Richard Gephardt, Tom Daschle, voting rights, environment, education, teachers, minimum wage, balanced budget, safe schools, community policing, women, liberal, gay, lesbian, african-american, latino, native american, asian american, politics, political, news, political sites, convention, Republican National Committee, RNC, Newt Gingrich, Dennis Hastert, Trent Lott, Rush Limbaugh, George Bush, Ronald Reagan"
This *is* interesting or insightful, but wont get moderated as such because you have directly addressed the moderators. I know that when I moderate, I ignore any posts which make any reference to moderation. (Unless they are obvious trolls asking to be moderated down.)
How much cash does Microsoft have in the bank. The stock plunged today, knocking down Bill's net worth by about 10%, but if Judge Jackson were to impose a fine, how much would it have to be to make a difference? 10 Billion? 50 Billion?
:-)
And where should that money go? Customers? Compertitors?
I think it would be great if every Microsoft Customer recieved a cheque for $100 or $500
Is that realistic?
What about paying down the national debt? A fine that big could make a big dent in the debt, maybe pay for some poor kids to learn to surf the net (on Macs running Netscape of course).
What do you think? Slashdot is a large collection of brains, what good ideas are out there?
It's only $3.99
Everyone should have a copy. When they run out and have to start printing more, someone will notice.
(and when they start burning books, this will be the first to go. keep your copy in a safe place)
Because they have focused the business plan on hardware, they can open up the software, make it free (as in speech *and* beer) eventually. They will still make the best hardware to run it, and the end result is that they sell more beige (or bondi blue, or tangerine, or graphite) boxes.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The judge in the Microsoft antitrust case has, in order to permit more time for settlement talks, delayed for a week or more his decision on whether the company broke the nation's antitrust laws, sources said Tuesday.
Sources familiar with the case said there is no fixed time on the delay while the government and Microsoft negotiators continue to talk, but that it will be a week or more.
The central theme that unites us is the desire and ability to use technology to make the world a better place.
If most geeks are humanists (I have no idea if they are) then we could borrow a bit from the humanist manifesto, and if there are alot of socialist geeks (again... no idea) we might borrow a word or two from Mr. Marx (Karl, not Groucho)
What do you think?
Slashdot could work to change this... in a big way. If we unite as a force of change, it may be possible to introduce some diversity into the presidential race. Slashdot as a whole should endorse a candidate (decided by the slashdot poll), which everyone on Slashdot will work to get elected. Obviously we would become one of those special interest groups, but one which is composed of individuals who all have a say in the collective policies that we support.
Slashdot polls on all the major issues, and with our sheer numbers, we would be able to influence the campaign platform of our selected candidate. I put forward the name of Ralph Nader only because he happens to be the candidate that I support, but it could just as easily be David McReynolds, or anyone, other than Bush or Gore.
The best way to determine who your views are most in line with is at the Presidential Candidate Selector: http://www.selectsmart.com/PRESIDENT/
Ralph Nader is here, and David McReynolds is here
This can only get worse in a degree program that focuses on gaming. So what's a geek to do? Transfer to Geography. Well not quite Geography. I'm now in the second year of a 4 year degree in Media, Information, Technoculture and Geography, and I'm happy to say that the ratio if guys to girls is much better. What is a geek doing in Media and Geography?
Its all about the information. Media and Information science is about who controls the information and where its at. Its a new program at the University of Western Ontario.
Why Geography? I like flight sims. ;-)
GIS (Geographical Information Systems) is one of the most data intensive applications there is. Its all about crunching big numbers and making sense of them.
The 4 years you spend at University will be the one time in your life when you will be surrounded by people your own age of the opposite gender. Why waste by taking courses with other male geeks, where there is so much geekyness in so many other fields? Open your mind... Explore the possibilities... (Try a Marijuana Cookie... ) =)
Link to Media, Information, Technoculture
Fruvous would be the next Beatles if people would just listen to their stuff!
The problem is that an unknown band doesn't get any radio play, and without radio play they remain an unknown band.
Regardless of where the industry goes, the physical booklet with lyrics will eventually make way for artist's web sites, which can hold infinitely more information than the little booklet. A good example of this is Moxy Fruvous
They have the lyrics to all the songs they ever recorded at their web site, as well as tour dates, fan info, and tons of other stuff. If we are still buying physical media (CDs or their descendents) in 10 years, the enclosed booklet will simply contain a URL, with all the info, including lyrics, at the web site.
(BTW, any other Fruvous fans out there? Former Fruvous fans?)
We've been waiting for this for more than 2 years now.
Canada finally has its own Apple Store. Yippee!!!!!
http://store.apple.com /1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/canadastore