Damn straight. The FTC also seems less tainted by telco, software and other comms monopolists than is the FCC. Maybe because the FCC is doing that job. Or maybe because I just don't know enough about the FTC.
Republicans fuck the green space chick only when she's underage, really a boy, or charging less than $45 credits per centistardate. If she's not green, she's gotta be their sister. I'm not dumb enough for any of that, but not too smart to talk shit on Slashdot.
I'm not a Democrat, and that's not their message. Of course their message is "Democrats are great!" You want a good president, you got Clinton. Not great, but good, and better than "not bad". Probably the best since Truman, or maybe Kennedy (Democrats), who were very good or great, depending on what you value.
Unfortunately, our elections don't let us choose "the good one", just "the better" (or "not the worse"). That's one reason why I often talk about Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), or "proportional voting". And why I often say how the parties (politicspeak for "conspiracies") are the worst defect in our system. Until we can vote in a way where everyone's votes count, not just the winners, we don't really have democracy.
But we have something that's acceptably not so great, and we can use it to make it better, even good. Saying "they're all the same", when they're not, just none good enough, makes it impossible to use what we've got to get what we want.
I think the problem is that people have Bush hatred coming out of our ears. Because Rove has got the system figured out to the point where our usual election system for consensus and letting off steam (such as it is) is totally inadequate. In many countries, the level of anger at the government, even reflected in Bush's relatively high (at about 35% "approval") would see the the officials resigning, or even riots in the streets. Especially with such high stakes, like the Iraq War and Osama bin Missing. In that context, keeping discussions on-topic is very difficult, when so many are so preoccupied with matters so much weightier than Ruby on Rails.
It's not professional, but Slashdot isn't a professional board. It's not even a geek board - it's a nerd board, and nerds are known for socially inappropriate behavior, like blurting out the truth.
As for metamoderation, it's a joke. I post those rebuttals to moderations so metamod'ers will have more context to judge whether the mod is un/fair. But I don't see any real dampening. It winds up being just a battle of my post frequency karma vs their team of downmod points. That seems to at least allow my free speech to fill the vacuum of their supression. Which seems more American, anyway, or at least familiar to me, a New Yorker.
That's the kind of crap that Bush was spewing when he said Social Security was "just an IOU". The entire Federal budget is an IOU, since we spend more than we make. But those Social Security checks that millions of Americans depend on aren't "just" an IOU. They're real checks that we depend on. Democrats haven't ever "stolen" it in a way that threatened the system. Bush wants to hand it to Republican stockbrokers, which will destroy it. Democrats in charge of the fund kept it going the way it's supposed to, while Republicans are doing everything (and even things they can't) to destroy it.
There are bastards, like Democrats we can live with, and there are evil mofos, like Republicans, who we can't.
There's a difference between "bad" and "worse". That stuff about Democrats taxing and spending is BS, when compared with Republicans. Reagan and Bush Sr/Jr have each spent more than every predecessor combined, with the intervening Clinton lowering spending. Reagan and Bush Sr raised taxes more than everyone else combined. Bush Jr has cheated by not even raising taxes as much as he's spent, creating a $45-65 TRILLION debt, which is even worse. While Clinton paid down the debt more than anyone ever before.
So since only Bush and Cheney are staring at being executed for treason, and then only hanged, we're faced with a different choice in a couple of months. Do you want to unacceptably bad Republicans, or the acceptably not so great Democrats? The real choice is obvious.
Yes. They were different from Republicans when they had power before. They're different now, even without power. There's no reason, except baseless Republican apologies, to think they're as bad as Republicans.
Your.sig says "I want a Social Security safety net. You are free to become a stain on life's floor if you don't.". Social Security was created by President Roosevelt, a Democrat, after his Republican predecessors presided over the creation and beginning of the Great Depression that made its necessity obvious. Gore campaigned in 2000 on keeping it safe, in a "lockbox". Bush took over and started to try to sell it off, while robbing it to fund his $45-65 TRILLION debt. Social Security is just one basic, important system that Democrats can be trusted with, while Republicans will steal it, are stealing it.
I remember what the country was like before Republicans controlled the government. It was better. Right now, it's bad in a way few would have imagined before. Unless maybe they were Republicans.
I quote Bush saying it's his job to keep expectations low. I point out that "news" isn't necessarily "surprises". I point out that the news here is Bush living down to low expectations.
Then I point out that we can do something about it in 7 weeks by voting.
Which part do the TrollMods mod down as "Flamebait"? Of course it's the part about voting, which scares the hell out of them. All these Republican TrollMods have is power abuse. No surprises, not even disappointing, not really news.
Take it away from their elected versions Tuesday, November 7.
There's lots of Bush crimes that aren't even against the law, or soon will have the law revised. I'm not bothering to make the distinction any more. Why should I, when it just gives them more places to hide?
I didn't ask you why the Democrats don't defend themselves the way I mentioned. I asked why no one does - including people like you, who are quick to downplay Republican crimes like the one we're discussing in that way.
I'm not a member of any party. Who have you voted for in the past few elections? Then tell me you don't favor one party over another.
No, I just hit the 9 key instead of the 2 key. Just because you flew off the handle deciding some whole fantasy argument with me doesn't make it anything but a simple mistake.
Sure, I usually don't make those mistakes. But they're a lot better than the insane rant it just sent you off into.
I didn't even compare it to these Ultra HDTV resolutions. Just the wideness that could achieve a lot of the "immersion" effect without the higher rez.
Man are you desperate for abuse. Try getting some in a thread where we can actually disagree about something.
I'm a hacker. I choose my target by seeing some new device or system that does something at least kinda cool. Then I say "I bet I can make it do something else cool." Then I do it.
They're talking about "crackers", "phishers", scammers and criminals. They're not trying to make a system do anything cool, except when it damages or robs a person. Just making a system do something unexpectedly cool is irrelevant unless it takes something from a person, not the system.
The FCC's job is entirely based on the need for a central registry for radio broadcasters, so sufficiently powerful signals don't interfere with each other. Along the way that leverage in denying access to the "public airwaves" turned into government control of broadcasters. Along that way the requirements to "serve the public good" were dropped. These days in favor of "protecting the propaganda of the government".
New phased array tech lets multiple transmitters share a frequency, but are distinguished by their spatial separation. So the FCC's central mission is coming to an end. A lot of their worst moves to sell off any public benefit and protection, and to merely regulate content on "obscenity" (or other culture war buzzwords) is mere desperate grabs for power.
I hope that phased array stations arrive well before the FCC can help the corporate broadcast cartel lock out entry to the media sphere. If we can make it past that dropping sword, we might be fairly home free.
The FCC wasn't nearly this bad in the past. Clinton's FCC, particularly under Reed Hunt, was pretty good, especially for the Internet and WiFi.
How come when Democrats have problems, no one defends them with "the Republicans are just as bad", even though Republicans, especially the ones we're dealing with now, are so much worse?
Go: Movement Vern: Green Ment: Thinking
OK, "vern" doesn't mean "green", but it's no sillier than your version.
Who says we're surprised? Or even disappointed, strictly speaking, since Bush's job is to keep expectations low.
Slashdot isn't "Surprises for Nerds". But living down to abyssmal expectations when handling telecomm policy is important news. Especially when the Republican Congress is facing losing reelection in only 7 weeks, on November 7, 2006. It's your chance to surprise them for a change.
I don't know why we don't already just use 3 screens across at just 1600x1900 (UXGA) all the time. We look at the middle screen for detail, and the side screens fill our peripheral vision. It seems like mounting a bezel on the screens that pushes out past their frames to join in front in a seam is a lot easier than making a really big panel. And the lower detail demand for the side screens could mean the driving boards don't need to triple the UXGA performance.
I'd expect this kind of rig to already be standard for gamers, whose peripheral vision is essential for survival. And therefore fairly cheap for the rest of us who just want desktops and movies that aren't like chasing a carrot on a stick.
It is totally obvious that any lasting peace in the "Mideast" includes a unified Kurdistan, rather than it turned inside out as the British left it. Building around that anchor of a diverse state with a consistent identity, the other states borders could shift into fairly natural alignments. But of course the British plan to destabilize the Ottoman Empire, pitting minority tribes in power against majorities with none, has finally come home to roost. And of course America has no interest in different religions getting along while different states cooperate without middlemen.
But Kurds could pull it off anyway. They're strong, and have largely stayed out of any escalation in Iraq, while still taking hits. If the wars on their doorsteps don't turn into actual apocalypse, they'll probably not only survive, but drive some momentum into other tribal states for equilibrium.
We still have a lot to learn from these people. Fortunately, we're watching them all the time these days.
I'm not talking about how the MS service works. I'm talking about the underlying legal rights. The DRM protects you only if it is "managing" a work that you have the right to share. The copyright law doesn't say anything about the right to share a "properly protected" work. It says only what rights we have to fairly use works we own, like sharing. DRM is a way of enforcing limits to prevent other uses.
So if MS is getting lots of people to fairly share works we own, then it is reinforcing the legal underpinnings of protecting those fair use rights. That legal underpinning is not exclusive to Microsoft, or DRM protected work. Only to fair use. If people share the works fairly, then we're not liable for copyright violation. If we don't, because we broke DRM or used non-DRM works, then we are liable. But it's the liability that's locked out by DRM that I'm interested in.
Any lawyer out there who can comment on whether MS DRM reinforces those fair use laws, or whether there's some other weasel work here that still leaves us uncertain, unless (maybe) we use MS DRM?
Ed Felten is also the guy who hacked the MS DLL that "integrated" IE into Windows to remove IE without destroying the OS, proving in court that Microsoft's defense of their illegal bundling, "it was technologically necessary", was a lie. Though Felten was not even a Windows specialist, and certainly didn't have the source code to delete IE cleanly, he was the the key to the court finding that MS had violated their antibundling consent agreement, the key to finding they'd violated their monopoly status.
Now he's the guy proving Diebold voting systems are insecure.
Isn't anyone else in our giant, brilliant "computer science" industry doing anything? Or are they all working for the bad guys?
Today's vote that we're discussing was the Republican majority of the committee voting to send a new law written by Republican Senator Specter for perpetuated amnesty for Republican president Bush to a Republican majority Senate, which will be joined by a Republican majority House, unless Democrats and the people can rein them in.
The Democrats were ignored at every step. The Democratic majority passed the FISA in 1978, though they were joined by Republicans in writing, committee ratifying and passing it, but to restrict a Democratic president, Carter. Clinton was responsible for tightening the FISA to also restrict physical searches, and the Republican Congress complied. The Democratic minority today tried to stop Specter from throwing out what we learned about imperial presidency, but was stopped. Next up Democrats will try to stop this criminal Act, and likely be ignored.
Our system shares power quite a bit, so it's hard to place blame on any one person/group. But with today's Republican control, nearly totally exclusive of any bipartisan cooperation or concessions, it's perfectly clear that the Republican Party is to blame. That doesn't mean Reagan or Lincoln are to blame, or that FDR didn't send Japanese people to interment camps, or any other ways to broaden the scope to ignore the reality. The reality that Republicans are turning the presidency into a "unitary executive", because they believe they'll keep it in their Republican Party indefinitely, or that they can change the law again when someone out of their club is the president.
Is Microsoft blazing a trail for "share with a friend", as long as the original is legitimately "owned" (like buying a CD) and the friend doesn't give a copy to anyone else?
There's lots of technology and social technique that could be thrown at ensuring that happens, not just MS DRM. But the biggest impediment is the total lack of any legal clarity that we still can exercise the same rights on a network to share with a friend that we have when we loan a legit copy of a CD, or play one at a party.
Slashdot Mirror
Damn straight. The FTC also seems less tainted by telco, software and other comms monopolists than is the FCC. Maybe because the FCC is doing that job. Or maybe because I just don't know enough about the FTC.
Republicans fuck the green space chick only when she's underage, really a boy, or charging less than $45 credits per centistardate. If she's not green, she's gotta be their sister. I'm not dumb enough for any of that, but not too smart to talk shit on Slashdot.
I'm not a Democrat, and that's not their message. Of course their message is "Democrats are great!" You want a good president, you got Clinton. Not great, but good, and better than "not bad". Probably the best since Truman, or maybe Kennedy (Democrats), who were very good or great, depending on what you value.
Unfortunately, our elections don't let us choose "the good one", just "the better" (or "not the worse"). That's one reason why I often talk about Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), or "proportional voting". And why I often say how the parties (politicspeak for "conspiracies") are the worst defect in our system. Until we can vote in a way where everyone's votes count, not just the winners, we don't really have democracy.
But we have something that's acceptably not so great, and we can use it to make it better, even good. Saying "they're all the same", when they're not, just none good enough, makes it impossible to use what we've got to get what we want.
I think the problem is that people have Bush hatred coming out of our ears. Because Rove has got the system figured out to the point where our usual election system for consensus and letting off steam (such as it is) is totally inadequate. In many countries, the level of anger at the government, even reflected in Bush's relatively high (at about 35% "approval") would see the the officials resigning, or even riots in the streets. Especially with such high stakes, like the Iraq War and Osama bin Missing. In that context, keeping discussions on-topic is very difficult, when so many are so preoccupied with matters so much weightier than Ruby on Rails.
It's not professional, but Slashdot isn't a professional board. It's not even a geek board - it's a nerd board, and nerds are known for socially inappropriate behavior, like blurting out the truth.
As for metamoderation, it's a joke. I post those rebuttals to moderations so metamod'ers will have more context to judge whether the mod is un/fair. But I don't see any real dampening. It winds up being just a battle of my post frequency karma vs their team of downmod points. That seems to at least allow my free speech to fill the vacuum of their supression. Which seems more American, anyway, or at least familiar to me, a New Yorker.
That's the kind of crap that Bush was spewing when he said Social Security was "just an IOU". The entire Federal budget is an IOU, since we spend more than we make. But those Social Security checks that millions of Americans depend on aren't "just" an IOU. They're real checks that we depend on. Democrats haven't ever "stolen" it in a way that threatened the system. Bush wants to hand it to Republican stockbrokers, which will destroy it. Democrats in charge of the fund kept it going the way it's supposed to, while Republicans are doing everything (and even things they can't) to destroy it.
There are bastards, like Democrats we can live with, and there are evil mofos, like Republicans, who we can't.
There's a difference between "bad" and "worse". That stuff about Democrats taxing and spending is BS, when compared with Republicans. Reagan and Bush Sr/Jr have each spent more than every predecessor combined, with the intervening Clinton lowering spending. Reagan and Bush Sr raised taxes more than everyone else combined. Bush Jr has cheated by not even raising taxes as much as he's spent, creating a $45-65 TRILLION debt, which is even worse. While Clinton paid down the debt more than anyone ever before.
So since only Bush and Cheney are staring at being executed for treason, and then only hanged, we're faced with a different choice in a couple of months. Do you want to unacceptably bad Republicans, or the acceptably not so great Democrats? The real choice is obvious.
Yes. They were different from Republicans when they had power before. They're different now, even without power. There's no reason, except baseless Republican apologies, to think they're as bad as Republicans.
.sig says "I want a Social Security safety net. You are free to become a stain on life's floor if you don't.". Social Security was created by President Roosevelt, a Democrat, after his Republican predecessors presided over the creation and beginning of the Great Depression that made its necessity obvious. Gore campaigned in 2000 on keeping it safe, in a "lockbox". Bush took over and started to try to sell it off, while robbing it to fund his $45-65 TRILLION debt. Social Security is just one basic, important system that Democrats can be trusted with, while Republicans will steal it, are stealing it.
Your
I remember what the country was like before Republicans controlled the government. It was better. Right now, it's bad in a way few would have imagined before. Unless maybe they were Republicans.
Moderation -1
100% Flamebait
I quote Bush saying it's his job to keep expectations low. I point out that "news" isn't necessarily "surprises". I point out that the news here is Bush living down to low expectations.
Then I point out that we can do something about it in 7 weeks by voting.
Which part do the TrollMods mod down as "Flamebait"? Of course it's the part about voting, which scares the hell out of them. All these Republican TrollMods have is power abuse. No surprises, not even disappointing, not really news.
Take it away from their elected versions Tuesday, November 7.
There's lots of Bush crimes that aren't even against the law, or soon will have the law revised. I'm not bothering to make the distinction any more. Why should I, when it just gives them more places to hide?
I fucked your sister even though she's not a green space chick.
I didn't ask you why the Democrats don't defend themselves the way I mentioned. I asked why no one does - including people like you, who are quick to downplay Republican crimes like the one we're discussing in that way.
I'm not a member of any party. Who have you voted for in the past few elections? Then tell me you don't favor one party over another.
No, I just hit the 9 key instead of the 2 key. Just because you flew off the handle deciding some whole fantasy argument with me doesn't make it anything but a simple mistake.
Sure, I usually don't make those mistakes. But they're a lot better than the insane rant it just sent you off into.
I didn't even compare it to these Ultra HDTV resolutions. Just the wideness that could achieve a lot of the "immersion" effect without the higher rez.
Man are you desperate for abuse. Try getting some in a thread where we can actually disagree about something.
I'm a hacker. I choose my target by seeing some new device or system that does something at least kinda cool. Then I say "I bet I can make it do something else cool." Then I do it.
They're talking about "crackers", "phishers", scammers and criminals. They're not trying to make a system do anything cool, except when it damages or robs a person. Just making a system do something unexpectedly cool is irrelevant unless it takes something from a person, not the system.
The FCC's job is entirely based on the need for a central registry for radio broadcasters, so sufficiently powerful signals don't interfere with each other. Along the way that leverage in denying access to the "public airwaves" turned into government control of broadcasters. Along that way the requirements to "serve the public good" were dropped. These days in favor of "protecting the propaganda of the government".
New phased array tech lets multiple transmitters share a frequency, but are distinguished by their spatial separation. So the FCC's central mission is coming to an end. A lot of their worst moves to sell off any public benefit and protection, and to merely regulate content on "obscenity" (or other culture war buzzwords) is mere desperate grabs for power.
I hope that phased array stations arrive well before the FCC can help the corporate broadcast cartel lock out entry to the media sphere. If we can make it past that dropping sword, we might be fairly home free.
The FCC wasn't nearly this bad in the past. Clinton's FCC, particularly under Reed Hunt, was pretty good, especially for the Internet and WiFi.
How come when Democrats have problems, no one defends them with "the Republicans are just as bad", even though Republicans, especially the ones we're dealing with now, are so much worse?
Go: Movement
Vern: Green
Ment: Thinking
OK, "vern" doesn't mean "green", but it's no sillier than your version.
Who says we're surprised? Or even disappointed, strictly speaking, since Bush's job is to keep expectations low.
Slashdot isn't "Surprises for Nerds". But living down to abyssmal expectations when handling telecomm policy is important news. Especially when the Republican Congress is facing losing reelection in only 7 weeks, on November 7, 2006. It's your chance to surprise them for a change.
I don't know why we don't already just use 3 screens across at just 1600x1900 (UXGA) all the time. We look at the middle screen for detail, and the side screens fill our peripheral vision. It seems like mounting a bezel on the screens that pushes out past their frames to join in front in a seam is a lot easier than making a really big panel. And the lower detail demand for the side screens could mean the driving boards don't need to triple the UXGA performance.
I'd expect this kind of rig to already be standard for gamers, whose peripheral vision is essential for survival. And therefore fairly cheap for the rest of us who just want desktops and movies that aren't like chasing a carrot on a stick.
It is totally obvious that any lasting peace in the "Mideast" includes a unified Kurdistan, rather than it turned inside out as the British left it. Building around that anchor of a diverse state with a consistent identity, the other states borders could shift into fairly natural alignments. But of course the British plan to destabilize the Ottoman Empire, pitting minority tribes in power against majorities with none, has finally come home to roost. And of course America has no interest in different religions getting along while different states cooperate without middlemen.
But Kurds could pull it off anyway. They're strong, and have largely stayed out of any escalation in Iraq, while still taking hits. If the wars on their doorsteps don't turn into actual apocalypse, they'll probably not only survive, but drive some momentum into other tribal states for equilibrium.
We still have a lot to learn from these people. Fortunately, we're watching them all the time these days.
I'm not talking about how the MS service works. I'm talking about the underlying legal rights. The DRM protects you only if it is "managing" a work that you have the right to share. The copyright law doesn't say anything about the right to share a "properly protected" work. It says only what rights we have to fairly use works we own, like sharing. DRM is a way of enforcing limits to prevent other uses.
So if MS is getting lots of people to fairly share works we own, then it is reinforcing the legal underpinnings of protecting those fair use rights. That legal underpinning is not exclusive to Microsoft, or DRM protected work. Only to fair use. If people share the works fairly, then we're not liable for copyright violation. If we don't, because we broke DRM or used non-DRM works, then we are liable. But it's the liability that's locked out by DRM that I'm interested in.
Any lawyer out there who can comment on whether MS DRM reinforces those fair use laws, or whether there's some other weasel work here that still leaves us uncertain, unless (maybe) we use MS DRM?
Moderation -2
100% Offtopic
"article about the export of high-tech equipment to China's security forces, and the dilemma that it creates"
vs
"Bush is giving nuke tech to India"
TrollMods want foreign militaries to have "fair and balanced" access to American military technology.
Ed Felten is also the guy who hacked the MS DLL that "integrated" IE into Windows to remove IE without destroying the OS, proving in court that Microsoft's defense of their illegal bundling, "it was technologically necessary", was a lie. Though Felten was not even a Windows specialist, and certainly didn't have the source code to delete IE cleanly, he was the the key to the court finding that MS had violated their antibundling consent agreement, the key to finding they'd violated their monopoly status.
Now he's the guy proving Diebold voting systems are insecure.
Isn't anyone else in our giant, brilliant "computer science" industry doing anything? Or are they all working for the bad guys?
Reagan and Johnson are dead and gone.
Today's vote that we're discussing was the Republican majority of the committee voting to send a new law written by Republican Senator Specter for perpetuated amnesty for Republican president Bush to a Republican majority Senate, which will be joined by a Republican majority House, unless Democrats and the people can rein them in.
The Democrats were ignored at every step. The Democratic majority passed the FISA in 1978, though they were joined by Republicans in writing, committee ratifying and passing it, but to restrict a Democratic president, Carter. Clinton was responsible for tightening the FISA to also restrict physical searches, and the Republican Congress complied. The Democratic minority today tried to stop Specter from throwing out what we learned about imperial presidency, but was stopped. Next up Democrats will try to stop this criminal Act, and likely be ignored.
Our system shares power quite a bit, so it's hard to place blame on any one person/group. But with today's Republican control, nearly totally exclusive of any bipartisan cooperation or concessions, it's perfectly clear that the Republican Party is to blame. That doesn't mean Reagan or Lincoln are to blame, or that FDR didn't send Japanese people to interment camps, or any other ways to broaden the scope to ignore the reality. The reality that Republicans are turning the presidency into a "unitary executive", because they believe they'll keep it in their Republican Party indefinitely, or that they can change the law again when someone out of their club is the president.
In related news, Bush is giving nuke tech to India.
Is Microsoft blazing a trail for "share with a friend", as long as the original is legitimately "owned" (like buying a CD) and the friend doesn't give a copy to anyone else?
There's lots of technology and social technique that could be thrown at ensuring that happens, not just MS DRM. But the biggest impediment is the total lack of any legal clarity that we still can exercise the same rights on a network to share with a friend that we have when we loan a legit copy of a CD, or play one at a party.
FWIW, the fortune at the bottom of this page from which I'm posting this comment says "Building translators is good clean fun. -- T. Cheatham"