I see too many limitations in peer to peer networking in anything but small groups. I have read some about freenet, and it seems like a good idea, but it isn't like napster: it really needs high speed always connected computers. While there may be a technological solution to help alleviate the legal problem of dealing with material that is unwanted, I do not see anything that can help as much as a legal solution. By legal I mean we have lawyers go in there and fight with other lawyers and politicians and get some of these laws straightened out. Every once in a while, some technology comes out that is so big it can change the law, such as the printing press, but the majority of technology does not have that big of an impact on our lives. I do think we are heading in the correct direction, but I don't think freenet is the final solution. I still prefer the traditional client and server relationship which helps things be a little less chaotic, and easier to use.
It seems to me like freenet also needs to track data to a certain extent because it caches the most popular content on other sites. That means there is an audit trail, even more than me setting up an ftp server on the different IP addresses I get with a dialup account, and just send an encrypted email to my friends to upload/download the content that is illegal from there. I would think there is less chance of me getting caught, even though I have to more actively do something considered illegal. Also, keep in mind that I realize freenet is not only going to be used for illegal stuff. But, it is the illegal (illegal is not always immoral, but often unpopular to the powers that be) content that is going to need the most protection and need to be cached the most. Stuff like deCSS mirrors are one example. We might be able to build on the peer to peer model some, but we still need there to be a strong structure based on a server passing clients to each other, or something. The only problem is that we know they won't allow this easily. Just look at napster, who does not distribute mp3's, but is getting in trouble for users doing it.
Anyone else have any better ideas?
Re:Peer-to-Peer will never make it
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Scour is Dead
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I don't know about you, but I don't upload files on Gnutella : I'm a leech.
Well, I don't use Gnutella, but as far as Napster goes, I do allow people to download from me frequently. Why you ask? Well, I have some rare stuff that is hard to find. I guess I have always been of the mind that if I had a big problem searching and trying to find this music, then it is good for me to help people by allowing them to get it from me.
A lot of the music I get would be in the more international or obscure categories, everything from Molotov to Plastilina Mosh to Tarkan to the Minibosses. I have been unable to find some of the music I like in stores anywhere (my Plastilina Mosh CD's were purchased in Mexico) so I figure I might as well help expose someone else to the music I like so it can become more popular. Maybe then I can hear other rare music that I like that I can't find in the stores.
So yes, there are the majority of people that are leeching, and that's fine. But, there are some of us that actually like to share and do good deeds for other people.
I think you should be a writer for slashdot. Get rid of Katz and put you in instead. I loved that post. You were serious and pulling people along, thinking of things to argue against, as well as making statements to start a debate, then at the very end you made the "Bobo" statement. That's fantastic work. It is the slashdot posting equivelant to "The Usual Suspects." I've read some other posts from you, and other than the ones that would be marked "karma whore" they are pretty funny.
Whether you are male, female, signal11 or not is unimportant. You amuse me. Thanks.
This product seems like a dream - for MEN WHO CAN'T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO PUT 1/100th OF AN INCH OF LATEX ON THEIR COCK!
Your post seems like a dream - for WOMEN WHO CAN'T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO HAVE SOME DISCRETION ABOUT WHO THEY FUCK!
Seriously, it shouldn't be a problem as intercourse requires two people. If a man doesn't want to put on a condom, the woman can close her legs and say no. You can argue that he might force her anyways and rape her, but how would she get into this situation in the first place? People have sex too easily, and should try to be a little more picky about who they let in their pants. This goes for both men and women. It's not that difficult to wait longer than a week after meeting someone before having sex. It just takes a little bit of common sense, which most humans don't seem to have.
One thing that seperates humans from animals is the fact that we can restrain ourselves from acting on impulses. If you want to have sex with someone but don't have a lot of trust with that person, then you are an idiot if you act on it. Sex is more than just having an orgasm, because there can be very life changing consequences. Try to have a meaningful relationship rather than just busting a nut and you'll see what I'm talking about.
I'm sorry but that is too much for the majority of us guys that are 15 - 30 or so. You are telling us to not give money to the people that brought us such greats as G.I. Joe and the Transformers. I have based my outlook on life on these two cartoons and sets of toys. I have started to become a mixture of Duke from G.I. Joe (the haircut at least), the overbearing presence of Optimus Prime, the sarcasm of Starscream, the patriotism of Serpentor, and the thriftiness of Destro.
You see, my brain was filled with these products at an early age, like most of the other guys here. We learned a lot from those 30 second clips at the end of every G.I. Joe cartoon where they told us, "knowing is half the battle."
For many of us, Hasbro is the company that raised us as our parents were working/abandoning us/etc so we grew up with what we learned from TV, comic books, and our toys. Hasbro was a major company that helped me become the person I am today.
It is good and it appears that they are listening to the public opinion about the treaty, but we have to see if they change enough to make it effective in prosecuting criminals, but not taking away any rights that we have now. I think it is possibly a step in the right direction, but I am skeptical as the article didn't give any details. I would like to see the counsil working directly with representatives from the privacy groups that had contacted them in the first place.
This part is a bit off topic, but I submitted the same story earlier too. No fair!:-p
I think there is a strong case to be made for a more 'democratic' form of government based on the fact that technology now makes representative goverenment all but obsolete.
The reason pure democracy is dangerous and would take away more freedoms than a republic is because it is simply mob rule. A republic can shield some of the smaller groups from the majority when they are wrong. A good example is racism. In the past, minority groups were not treated equal with the majority. It doesn't mean all American white people were bad then, just that they had looked at minorities (even other whites such as the Irish immigrants) as 2nd class people. If you were black/native american/irish/chinese/etc would you really want to be alive back then if they had a pure democracy? I sure wouldn't. It's only because it was more of a representive form of government that we were able to gain the freedoms for the minority groups. If we were in a democracy now, we would all eat at McDonalds, shop at Walmart, be Christian, pass laws that fear technology like computers, but use it to lease movies to watch on our MPAA approved DVD players, we would close the borders from those evil foreigners from Mexico China and India that want to come here to be citizens, and we would be even more sheep than we are now.
If you have ever been any part of any minority group (even the "geeks" Katz is always bitching for) you would know that mob rule such as democracy destroys freedom of choice and freedom to have different opinions. Democracy is a dangerous thing. It is the cousin of communism and I hope to never live in a country that is a pure democracy. I don't want laws passed against me to infringe on my constitutional rights.
Making voting mandatory is a very bad idea. While I don't think we want to make voting a thing for only rich white male landowners, I do think we should allow those who don't want to vote to stay at home. Also, there should be a better opportunity for learning about the candidates for all the different offices. The president gets a lot of airplay, but as you go down the list in rank you will see that the people who can make a bigger difference in your life get very little mention on the news.
An example would be the people running for sherriff. If you are unaware of the candidates for that office, you may vote for someone who is being paid off by drug dealers and such. It's hard to know all the candidates that you want to elect. Some people do research before they vote, but the majority do not, and simply vote for names by political party, or even randomly. I once voted for someone because he had a funny name (Dick Wood or something like that) but I knew nothing of the guy and can't remember what office he was running for.
A misinformed vote is a bad thing. What you propose is that we not only continue with how the system works now (picking by who has a better haircut, nicer looking kids, etc.) but making it worse, so that we have people voting that don't know and don't care, and only vote because they are forced to. I do agree that there is something wrong with not caring. I hate Republicans and Democrats so I always vote 3rd party. Even though I don't agree with them 100% I do think they are a lot more honest than the two main parties and if they can win some smaller offices then they can do some good there to make things better locally.
Now...to go on another subject about mandatory voting, some places are very exclusive about who they let vote. I moved recently to Georgia. Now, they have the motor voter registration, so when I got my driver's license they let me register to vote. That was in September. When the day came for me to vote, I went to the place I was told to go, and prepared to make my vote. The problem is that Georgia is worse than Florida. When you register to vote, they might lose your paperwork, they might forget to process it, etc. Basically, I was told that I was not in the books, and therefore could not vote. I was pissed. I was shocked to learn that I was not the only person with that problem, and that it had happened to a lot of people. At least 2 others in the 5 minutes I was there. So how can you make voting mandatory, when they don't even want us to vote in the first place?
Well, those are my two arguements against it...feel free to agree or disagree.
I actually don't go the the movies much anyways. Plus, if it's a bad movie, that's ok too. There's fewer people in the theater, and if the plot is boring, it isn't distracting so me and my girlfriend can just sit there and kiss each other.
Anyways, I do agree that it's good to see a movie myself instead of relying on other people's opinions because I have odd tastes in movies. While I do fit in with a lot of people here...I like anime and monty python type movies, I also like some stuff that a lot of people don't like. I have no problem adjusting from watching "Rush Hour" to "Othello" to "The Neverending Story." I'm a real hoopy frood like that.
I was being sarcastic and kidding. I will probably see it eventually on video just because I liked the cartoon when I was a little kid, but seriously, I won't waste $7 on it.
1) it's insanely difficult to vote in this country
I agree. I recently moved to Georgia. I went to get my driver's license (a process that took *5 HOURS OF STANDING IN LINE! and 5 minutes of work on their part*) and they asked me if I would like to register to vote. I said yes, and she said that was all I had to do to register. I thought that it was cool, and after nearly two months I got my actual license in the mail. So, I figured I was registered to vote, I asked a neighbor where to go to vote, and I went about my merry way.
So, to make a long story short, when I went to vote, I was turned away, and the person that was trying to help me was unable to get through to the number she had and informed me that there were a lot of people that were unable to vote due to the state of Georgia screwing it up.
The end result is that I hate the system even more, it's not a conspiracy, but beaurocracy and stupidity. We already know that the method of the electoral college is screwed up, but this adds just another reason why the system in the U.S. is not all it's cracked up to be. I wanted to vote, but was denied. To the state of Georgia, I give a hearty, "FUCK YOU!"
Actually Canada has been voted the best place to live on Earth for seven years running by the UN.
Yeah but by my standards Canada sucks. I have met quite a few people from there, and spent a little time in some parts of Canada, and most of the people I meet treat you like you are a stupid child. They are very condescending, although very polite at the same time. The Canadians I have met seem to have the attitude of "We know better than you do" even more than the citizens of the U.S. and France do. I currently work with a Canadian who has soured my perception of the country even more. I'm finding that while Canadians may have things taken care of better in a physical sense than people do in the U.S., their personalities tend to be obnoxious and annoying. Also it gets way too cold for my tastes.
The average American (and I include Slashdot readers in this) is so stupid, that they ought to have to take a literacy test before they are allowed to vote. In fact, I'm not sure that I have any faith in "we the people's" ability to judge what is right and wrong anymore.
Actually, it isn't just Americans. If you look at any country or culture, you will see that the majority of people are completely stupid. I am not meaning this in a flamebait sort of way, but that most people don't want to think and are no better than sheep. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as only letting people of a certain age vote, or of a certain education or any other criteria you can think of. You think that Europeans are so much better, but they aren't. Sure they might know more than Americans in some categories, but they can be stupid in other ways. Take the French for example. Please, I don't want them. Ok, bad joke.
We don't let children drink alcohol, but we let them vote ?
Not only do we let them vote, but we make them completely responsible for themselves at 18, and make them sign up to go get killed if the government decides on a whim to go to war for no reason (Vietnam for example, and the politicians involved should have been executed for treason against the U.S.) We should abolish the draft, and not go to war for anything but defensive reasons.
Now, I do agree with you that the U.S. sucks ass. Unfortunately, from what I am finding out, every country is a horrible place to live, because they are infested with people. The silly semi-hairless monkeys try to be civilized but really are the worst animals to live on this planet. The few of us that do think for ourselves will either become leaders, or outcasts of society. American has never taken itself seriously, but at one time we did have leaders that were good men, and relatively cared for people. Yes, they did some really really bad things (genocide of the native americans, slavery, etc.) but they had some sound principles that today we can apply to all people equally. Unfortunately, the thing that our form of government requires to function is good people. So, with the lack of quality people in the U.S., and the entire world, we are doomed to suffer as we have for thousands of years already.
My girlfriend works for a small business that does architectural stuff (recently they are branching out to making inventory databases and other computer related stuff.) Last year, the BSA contacted them and demanded an audit, or they'd get the police to get a warrant so they could search. Like I said, it was a small company, and everyone there is either friends or family, so I doubt anyone turned them in for having pirated software. I think the Business Software Alliance goes "fishing" like this, and threatens businesses so they can see how they respond. Luckily, their business is small so they just had to get a license for NT Server, which they did not have on hand but had a legal copy of it, and they were ok when the BSA audited them.
For those of you that don't know, the BSA is a lot like the RIAA or MPAA but for software. They represent a lot of large companies like Microsoft and Adobe, and usually do the harassment for these companies so it doesn't directly come out that Microsoft ordered an audit of this city. I guess the only relevance is that now with the UCITA enacted perhaps M$ can do it directly? I don't know really but this sort of thing has been going on for years. I wish software was treated better, as well as most other intangible products. Once I buy something, I want to own it, and I don't want to have to deal with the company that made it every again, other than for warranty situations.
And no, I don't want to pandered to. But I do expect my politicians to have enough brains to realize, well, wait a minute I'd like to figure out just who the audience is for Slashdot, what things they're concerned about, and how the issues *I'm* concerned about fit into their concerns.
Ummm...because you don't agree Bush's answers, you say that he is stupid? That sounds pretty intolerant and stubborn to me. I don't agree with Bush and a lot of what he stands for (I don't agree with Gore either, I'm voting for Browne) but I do think he is allowed to have whatever opinions he has.
Unfortunately, like a large portion of the population, you will vote for whoever lies to you the most because they at least recognize you are part of a group with some sort of (voting) power. Personally, I see voters as a woman that is being beaten by her husband. If he beats her enough, then turns around and apologizes, she is going to stay with him. I don't understand why it happens like this, because the best choice would be to leave him. Voters are the same. People keep voting for Republicans and Democrats because they are both corrupt, and people stick with their political parties because "they could never find someone new again" or one of those excuses that victims often use to explain why they stay with attackers. My opinion, is that voting Republican or Democrat is simply staying with a government that will continue to rape and beat our country.
In any case, what we need are honest politicians. On here, Bush's statements (whether someone else wrote them or not) are true of what his goals are. They are probably not what the slashdot crowd wants to hear, but at least we know where he is going. I've seen a lot of the same for Gore, even if he won't reply to slashdot, I imagine he would piss off people by being against other things that are popular here. If you don't like what they stand for, don't vote for them. I think that true Democrats would be better off voting for Nader, Republicans should vote for Buchanan, and that the people that just want to end the political games would be better off voting for Browne. I don't think we will ever be able to have a purely innocent government that is not corrupted somehow, but if we can send a message to politicians to tell us the truth we the people could end up winning.
The article was dealing with servers rather than workstations. I would agree with you about workstations, although it is possible to set up a dummy terminal type thing that would be just as easy as windows as long as the users didn't have to maintain them (I think Sun's Sunray xterms are pretty cool.) From the context of using unix/linux as a server, it is definitely easier than windows 2k or NT once you learn what you are doing. Now, there is a learning curve in either case for a lot of systems tasks, and since everything in Windows is based on the gui, it may seem easier to work on to the lazy person who doesn't want to type anything. However, if you look at the tasks you have to do, it is almost always easier to work on unix. A good example of where they are equal is adding a user. In Solaris, I can go to the command line and type "useradd b0z" and create a user named b0z on the system. This is simple, but you may not want to remember the commands. That's fine, there is a gui program called admintool that you can use in a similar fashion to the user manager in windows NT. So I would say they are equally easy in that task. Now, when it comes to something such as backing up a server, you can do it easily since you simply have to back up files. For example, if you have some specific things in your configuration that you need to back up, simply copy the contents of/etc to a tape and you're done. In Windows NT, you have to export the registry, and even then if you back it up and try to import it again that can be kinda sketchy. Basically, when you have to get down to the guts of the OS, unix is far easier than NT because the contents of/etc are much easier to deal with and more intuitive than the bloated registry with it's endless keys that can appear multiple times on the hives. Also, when you have to administer an NT server, you can't just ssh in and start and stop services very easily. There is software like SMS that you can use, but since it is gui based, you take longer to fix the problems in this case (if you are on a modem or something equally slow.) Yes, it is possible to use the NET command in NT to do some tasks, but it is not nearly as useful as simply opening a terminal window on the server itself. Also, you have much more robust scripting capabilities in unix based systems. You have perl, tcl, sh, ksh and other languages you can use to automate system administration tasks on unix. On NT, you can use some of these, but they can't interact with the OS as closely since a lot of tasks in NT require a user to be present by pointing and clicking on things.
Unix is much easier to work with and maintain for a server OS, but Windows is better than linux for a desktop. Since the article was about servers, I guess you should read the article next time.:oD
I agree with you completely. For most jobs whether you are a coder, technical writer, analyst, etc. there is a lot of work you can do from home if not all.
Part of the reason companies won't give you flexible hours is because managers like to see what you are doing and know where you are and how to reach you. It's not enough that they make you carry a pager, but they want to be able to pull you into an emergency meeting at any time of the day. They thrive off of consistency in the schedule, not being consistent with your work as much. I think that the only way that we will get flexible hours is when these businesses wake up and become results based rather than time based. If I tell my manager it will take me two months to finish a project working 9 - 5, for 5 days a week, I should also be permitted to work 16 hour days for a month if I want so I can finish the project, then take the next month off. I would have done all the work in the time period that we had arranged, so my benefit would be that I could have the time left over to relax. The problem from a manager's point of view is that they are not trained very well to know if we would B.S. them or not. Sure, I could say it will take a month, but what if my project really only took a week to finish because I wanted to get extra time off to screw around? That isn't honest, and the manager really wouldn't have any way to know. I think we will start on the right path when businesses care more about the results of our work than how long we are sitting around in the office, but there are still those few issues to be resolved.
The same goes for telecommuting with one exception. I would think that technically, we would end up getting more work done if we telecommute rather than go into the office. Personally, I live alone, so there would be no distractions other than what I would create for myself. If I were to sit down and start coding, then I would probably end up working more hours at home sitting on the sofa with a laptop than I would if I were stuck in a cubicle being distracted by everyone surrounding me, and all the additional office politics. I think the only disadvantage to telecommuting is that my boss would not know what I am doing very much, so unless he arranged for me to send him status reports or something, he would be completely in the dark and appear stupid to his boss. Also, there is the cost, as a lot of companies that have employees that telecommute pay twice for equipment. Most people will telecommute only part of the time, but also need a desk to sit at for the days they do need to go in to work. I think we are getting closer though, and if the government gives more tax breaks and such for companies that have a lot of telecommuters, businesses will let more of us do it.
Also, about vacation time. We need more of it. I really don't like how most businesses in the U.S. expect us to work all but 2 weeks out of the year. I heard that in Germany you get 2 months minimum. Why is it that our culture has moved from living life for yourself and family (if you have one) to living to serve a company? I work hard for my employer, and expect them to work hard to make me happy in exchange for it. A lot of what they do is very superficial, and it is much cheaper to spend $200 on a ping pong table than it is to let all the employees have a month of vacation time. They only pay lip service to trying to satisfy the employees, and really just use it as an excuse to try to get us to work longer. We really need some reform in business in general so that the U.S. can rise up to the labor standards of civilized nations.
Other than that, I do think that there are some things that can be done to make us happier. I would think this applies to all industries, not just information technology. I think that since the I.T. field is supposed to be high tech, our jobs and business processes should be also. We have a lot of stuff on the web already for HR, Purchasing, Help Desks, etc in a lot of companies. Why can't the companies themselves live up to the potential of what we are giving them?
I have Virtua Fighter PC. It works pretty well and if I scale my graphics down a bit it runs nice on my system (P133, 32MB RAM, 4MB video card, generic gamepad.)
Also, I think that Sega has done a good job on some of it's games. Sonic was the fastest game I had ever seen when it came out for the original Genesis. I was impressed and that caused me to want to buy it, even though the SNES had better graphics capabilities, the Genesis seemed to run better. I think Virtua Fighter was one of the first games of it's type, which helped the graphics genre of polygon based 3D games get more popular and mainstream. It's fluid movements impressed me and my friends a lot even though we played it on the Sega 32X. Then, even further back, on my Commodore 64 I had a couple games from Sega. I can't remember the names right now, I think one was Outrun. You drove a Ferrari with a blonde in the passenger side and went past buildings and through the desert and stuff. The other one was Afterburner, which even though the landscape was lame, it was a good game for an 8bit computer system. I'd say these games were ahead of Nintendo quality and I believe they were out a lot earlier than the NES. In any case, Sega has made some really good software, and I hope they continue to do so.
MSCE = Minesweeper Competent Solitaire Expert.
I have sat through some of the classes (NT 4.0 Core, MS-SQL Server 7.0 Admin, etc) and yes, I have become a minesweeper and solitaire expert. So, we have plenty of people such as myself that have had training in these complex programs, since we had to do something while the instructor blabbered on about some corny jokes to try to liven up the classes. I'm not MCSE certified, but I am pretty damn good when it comes to solitaire and minesweeper. I have been improving on my freecell skills, and I have already mastered the pinball game that comes with NT. WOOHOO!
Most people *I* know arent really out to rape the artists
What makes you so sure that this money goes to the artists any more than buying CD's do? And now, BMG is going to profit off of artists that it has nothing to do with. So in effect, BMG is out there making money from other major record labels, as well as independent artists. I see how BMG is winning from this, but not artists or fans. It just makes the middle man more powerful, and hopefully Lars and Dr. Dre will fight this even more than they were fighting against their fans before. Whatever happens, this is not a good thing that napster and bmg are teaming up. It screws over the fans and artists worse than before.
Please read this book by Carl Sagan. I see that both sides are arguing life on Mars, etc and neither are from a very scientific perspective in my opinion. There has not been enough research done one way or another to believe some of the things stated.
There is no reason to think it, considering Mars is relatively Earth-like and life happens very easily.
Life has not happened easily anywhere but Earth that we know of. Unless you have proof of life that has originated somewhere other than Earth, you can't make this statement. We have no reason to think that life occurs because of water, it just happened to be like that on our speck of dust. That is not to say I agree with the person who you replied to, because it very well is possible that there is life, but I won't believe it until there is proof.
: There never were lifeforms on Mars
This is very, very unlikely. Where there is liquid water, there is usually life. Life is made up of the most common elements in the universe, and for life to exist all you really need is water and some basic primordial soup. The chances of Mars never having had even the lowest form of bacteria are incredibly slim.
Again, you are taking science that you learned from watching Star Trek and applying it to real life. We have not found any life outside of Earth at this point in time. We may never find any, as the universe is really big, and, well, we aren't. So, the way a real scientist looks at the situation would be that, yes, it is possible for life to exist outside of Earth. We can not make any assumptions about that life, because we have a very limited amount of data to compare it against. When people base their knowledge on huge assumptions and make giant leaps of logic to support their beliefs, it invalidates the real science. You have to be skeptical, but open to new ideas. Try to understand, that by debunking someone's opinion with your opinion, rather than facts, you can't win. I know that there is no way humans can know anything 100% for certain, but, at least have some proof to back things up before you go around spreading your ideas to be facts. This is addressed to both people above me in this thread. Don't make science into a religion. There is a place for religion in people's lives, and there is a seperate place for science. When you base your "beliefs" on what you want to be true, rather than facts, that is a religion. I am not saying there is not any deities either. There may be, but I have no proof so I can't say.
So I won't be completely off-topic in this thread, let me just say that the only real way to know what's over on Mars is to send some people there. C'mon Nasa...it'd be fun!:o)
Technically, couldn't that be the job of the supreme court? While the state police handle the enforcement of the law, if there is anything on a scale where two states have differing laws and both are affected, it might need to go to a higher group. I don't quite understand any real use of the FBI, other than harassment of criminals and innocent people. I would think that what we need is a federal group to take in court cases in situations where the states may not agree on the punishment of a crime, but, for example, if someone were to murder a guy in California, then move to Texas and do the same, then move on to another state and murder someone, he committed the crimes in 3 seperate states. That doesn't make it a federal case in my eyes, but it does mean he should be tried for each crime according to the laws of each of the places he did the acts.
Also, lets say the war on drugs was a valid fight for the government to fight. If someone sneaks drugs from Mexico up to Arizona, then eventually crosses the state line to New Mexico, the crimes committed were in Arizona and New Mexico. In this case, rather than having the FBI or someone go after this person, they would be liable by both the Arizona and New Mexico police. The person has committed crimes in two states, making the possible punishment even stronger (should be appealing to the people that think they are safer by stronger punishments.) I guess I am naieve, but I don't see a use for a federal police. The purpose of the federal government was to basically let the states have some semblance of unification, but not pass any real laws other than very basic things to protect the rights that were given to people in the constitution.
Slashdot Mirror
I just hope I can be the first person to try to get the chicken.coop domain name. WOOHOO!
It seems to me like freenet also needs to track data to a certain extent because it caches the most popular content on other sites. That means there is an audit trail, even more than me setting up an ftp server on the different IP addresses I get with a dialup account, and just send an encrypted email to my friends to upload/download the content that is illegal from there. I would think there is less chance of me getting caught, even though I have to more actively do something considered illegal. Also, keep in mind that I realize freenet is not only going to be used for illegal stuff. But, it is the illegal (illegal is not always immoral, but often unpopular to the powers that be) content that is going to need the most protection and need to be cached the most. Stuff like deCSS mirrors are one example. We might be able to build on the peer to peer model some, but we still need there to be a strong structure based on a server passing clients to each other, or something. The only problem is that we know they won't allow this easily. Just look at napster, who does not distribute mp3's, but is getting in trouble for users doing it.
Anyone else have any better ideas?
Well, I don't use Gnutella, but as far as Napster goes, I do allow people to download from me frequently. Why you ask? Well, I have some rare stuff that is hard to find. I guess I have always been of the mind that if I had a big problem searching and trying to find this music, then it is good for me to help people by allowing them to get it from me.
A lot of the music I get would be in the more international or obscure categories, everything from Molotov to Plastilina Mosh to Tarkan to the Minibosses. I have been unable to find some of the music I like in stores anywhere (my Plastilina Mosh CD's were purchased in Mexico) so I figure I might as well help expose someone else to the music I like so it can become more popular. Maybe then I can hear other rare music that I like that I can't find in the stores.
So yes, there are the majority of people that are leeching, and that's fine. But, there are some of us that actually like to share and do good deeds for other people.
Whether you are male, female, signal11 or not is unimportant. You amuse me. Thanks.
Your post seems like a dream - for WOMEN WHO CAN'T EVEN BE BOTHERED TO HAVE SOME DISCRETION ABOUT WHO THEY FUCK!
Seriously, it shouldn't be a problem as intercourse requires two people. If a man doesn't want to put on a condom, the woman can close her legs and say no. You can argue that he might force her anyways and rape her, but how would she get into this situation in the first place? People have sex too easily, and should try to be a little more picky about who they let in their pants. This goes for both men and women. It's not that difficult to wait longer than a week after meeting someone before having sex. It just takes a little bit of common sense, which most humans don't seem to have.
One thing that seperates humans from animals is the fact that we can restrain ourselves from acting on impulses. If you want to have sex with someone but don't have a lot of trust with that person, then you are an idiot if you act on it. Sex is more than just having an orgasm, because there can be very life changing consequences. Try to have a meaningful relationship rather than just busting a nut and you'll see what I'm talking about.
You see, my brain was filled with these products at an early age, like most of the other guys here. We learned a lot from those 30 second clips at the end of every G.I. Joe cartoon where they told us, "knowing is half the battle."
For many of us, Hasbro is the company that raised us as our parents were working/abandoning us/etc so we grew up with what we learned from TV, comic books, and our toys. Hasbro was a major company that helped me become the person I am today.
This part is a bit off topic, but I submitted the same story earlier too. No fair! :-p
The reason pure democracy is dangerous and would take away more freedoms than a republic is because it is simply mob rule. A republic can shield some of the smaller groups from the majority when they are wrong. A good example is racism. In the past, minority groups were not treated equal with the majority. It doesn't mean all American white people were bad then, just that they had looked at minorities (even other whites such as the Irish immigrants) as 2nd class people. If you were black/native american/irish/chinese/etc would you really want to be alive back then if they had a pure democracy? I sure wouldn't. It's only because it was more of a representive form of government that we were able to gain the freedoms for the minority groups. If we were in a democracy now, we would all eat at McDonalds, shop at Walmart, be Christian, pass laws that fear technology like computers, but use it to lease movies to watch on our MPAA approved DVD players, we would close the borders from those evil foreigners from Mexico China and India that want to come here to be citizens, and we would be even more sheep than we are now.
If you have ever been any part of any minority group (even the "geeks" Katz is always bitching for) you would know that mob rule such as democracy destroys freedom of choice and freedom to have different opinions. Democracy is a dangerous thing. It is the cousin of communism and I hope to never live in a country that is a pure democracy. I don't want laws passed against me to infringe on my constitutional rights.
An example would be the people running for sherriff. If you are unaware of the candidates for that office, you may vote for someone who is being paid off by drug dealers and such. It's hard to know all the candidates that you want to elect. Some people do research before they vote, but the majority do not, and simply vote for names by political party, or even randomly. I once voted for someone because he had a funny name (Dick Wood or something like that) but I knew nothing of the guy and can't remember what office he was running for.
A misinformed vote is a bad thing. What you propose is that we not only continue with how the system works now (picking by who has a better haircut, nicer looking kids, etc.) but making it worse, so that we have people voting that don't know and don't care, and only vote because they are forced to. I do agree that there is something wrong with not caring. I hate Republicans and Democrats so I always vote 3rd party. Even though I don't agree with them 100% I do think they are a lot more honest than the two main parties and if they can win some smaller offices then they can do some good there to make things better locally.
Now...to go on another subject about mandatory voting, some places are very exclusive about who they let vote. I moved recently to Georgia. Now, they have the motor voter registration, so when I got my driver's license they let me register to vote. That was in September. When the day came for me to vote, I went to the place I was told to go, and prepared to make my vote. The problem is that Georgia is worse than Florida. When you register to vote, they might lose your paperwork, they might forget to process it, etc. Basically, I was told that I was not in the books, and therefore could not vote. I was pissed. I was shocked to learn that I was not the only person with that problem, and that it had happened to a lot of people. At least 2 others in the 5 minutes I was there. So how can you make voting mandatory, when they don't even want us to vote in the first place?
Well, those are my two arguements against it...feel free to agree or disagree.
Anyways, I do agree that it's good to see a movie myself instead of relying on other people's opinions because I have odd tastes in movies. While I do fit in with a lot of people here...I like anime and monty python type movies, I also like some stuff that a lot of people don't like. I have no problem adjusting from watching "Rush Hour" to "Othello" to "The Neverending Story." I'm a real hoopy frood like that.
I was being sarcastic and kidding. I will probably see it eventually on video just because I liked the cartoon when I was a little kid, but seriously, I won't waste $7 on it.
Thanks for the advice. I'll go check out "The Grinch" instead.
1) it's insanely difficult to vote in this country
I agree. I recently moved to Georgia. I went to get my driver's license (a process that took *5 HOURS OF STANDING IN LINE! and 5 minutes of work on their part*) and they asked me if I would like to register to vote. I said yes, and she said that was all I had to do to register. I thought that it was cool, and after nearly two months I got my actual license in the mail. So, I figured I was registered to vote, I asked a neighbor where to go to vote, and I went about my merry way. So, to make a long story short, when I went to vote, I was turned away, and the person that was trying to help me was unable to get through to the number she had and informed me that there were a lot of people that were unable to vote due to the state of Georgia screwing it up. The end result is that I hate the system even more, it's not a conspiracy, but beaurocracy and stupidity. We already know that the method of the electoral college is screwed up, but this adds just another reason why the system in the U.S. is not all it's cracked up to be. I wanted to vote, but was denied. To the state of Georgia, I give a hearty, "FUCK YOU!"
Yeah but by my standards Canada sucks. I have met quite a few people from there, and spent a little time in some parts of Canada, and most of the people I meet treat you like you are a stupid child. They are very condescending, although very polite at the same time. The Canadians I have met seem to have the attitude of "We know better than you do" even more than the citizens of the U.S. and France do. I currently work with a Canadian who has soured my perception of the country even more. I'm finding that while Canadians may have things taken care of better in a physical sense than people do in the U.S., their personalities tend to be obnoxious and annoying. Also it gets way too cold for my tastes.
Actually, it isn't just Americans. If you look at any country or culture, you will see that the majority of people are completely stupid. I am not meaning this in a flamebait sort of way, but that most people don't want to think and are no better than sheep. Unfortunately, it's not as easy as only letting people of a certain age vote, or of a certain education or any other criteria you can think of. You think that Europeans are so much better, but they aren't. Sure they might know more than Americans in some categories, but they can be stupid in other ways. Take the French for example. Please, I don't want them. Ok, bad joke.
We don't let children drink alcohol, but we let them vote ?
Not only do we let them vote, but we make them completely responsible for themselves at 18, and make them sign up to go get killed if the government decides on a whim to go to war for no reason (Vietnam for example, and the politicians involved should have been executed for treason against the U.S.) We should abolish the draft, and not go to war for anything but defensive reasons.
Now, I do agree with you that the U.S. sucks ass. Unfortunately, from what I am finding out, every country is a horrible place to live, because they are infested with people. The silly semi-hairless monkeys try to be civilized but really are the worst animals to live on this planet. The few of us that do think for ourselves will either become leaders, or outcasts of society. American has never taken itself seriously, but at one time we did have leaders that were good men, and relatively cared for people. Yes, they did some really really bad things (genocide of the native americans, slavery, etc.) but they had some sound principles that today we can apply to all people equally. Unfortunately, the thing that our form of government requires to function is good people. So, with the lack of quality people in the U.S., and the entire world, we are doomed to suffer as we have for thousands of years already.
For those of you that don't know, the BSA is a lot like the RIAA or MPAA but for software. They represent a lot of large companies like Microsoft and Adobe, and usually do the harassment for these companies so it doesn't directly come out that Microsoft ordered an audit of this city. I guess the only relevance is that now with the UCITA enacted perhaps M$ can do it directly? I don't know really but this sort of thing has been going on for years. I wish software was treated better, as well as most other intangible products. Once I buy something, I want to own it, and I don't want to have to deal with the company that made it every again, other than for warranty situations.
Ummm...because you don't agree Bush's answers, you say that he is stupid? That sounds pretty intolerant and stubborn to me. I don't agree with Bush and a lot of what he stands for (I don't agree with Gore either, I'm voting for Browne) but I do think he is allowed to have whatever opinions he has.
Unfortunately, like a large portion of the population, you will vote for whoever lies to you the most because they at least recognize you are part of a group with some sort of (voting) power. Personally, I see voters as a woman that is being beaten by her husband. If he beats her enough, then turns around and apologizes, she is going to stay with him. I don't understand why it happens like this, because the best choice would be to leave him. Voters are the same. People keep voting for Republicans and Democrats because they are both corrupt, and people stick with their political parties because "they could never find someone new again" or one of those excuses that victims often use to explain why they stay with attackers. My opinion, is that voting Republican or Democrat is simply staying with a government that will continue to rape and beat our country.
In any case, what we need are honest politicians. On here, Bush's statements (whether someone else wrote them or not) are true of what his goals are. They are probably not what the slashdot crowd wants to hear, but at least we know where he is going. I've seen a lot of the same for Gore, even if he won't reply to slashdot, I imagine he would piss off people by being against other things that are popular here. If you don't like what they stand for, don't vote for them. I think that true Democrats would be better off voting for Nader, Republicans should vote for Buchanan, and that the people that just want to end the political games would be better off voting for Browne. I don't think we will ever be able to have a purely innocent government that is not corrupted somehow, but if we can send a message to politicians to tell us the truth we the people could end up winning.
Unix is much easier to work with and maintain for a server OS, but Windows is better than linux for a desktop. Since the article was about servers, I guess you should read the article next time. :oD
SHHHH!!! Keep it down! We don't want the boss to realize that we are really going to go to Las Vegas for the week, where the concubines are!
Part of the reason companies won't give you flexible hours is because managers like to see what you are doing and know where you are and how to reach you. It's not enough that they make you carry a pager, but they want to be able to pull you into an emergency meeting at any time of the day. They thrive off of consistency in the schedule, not being consistent with your work as much. I think that the only way that we will get flexible hours is when these businesses wake up and become results based rather than time based. If I tell my manager it will take me two months to finish a project working 9 - 5, for 5 days a week, I should also be permitted to work 16 hour days for a month if I want so I can finish the project, then take the next month off. I would have done all the work in the time period that we had arranged, so my benefit would be that I could have the time left over to relax. The problem from a manager's point of view is that they are not trained very well to know if we would B.S. them or not. Sure, I could say it will take a month, but what if my project really only took a week to finish because I wanted to get extra time off to screw around? That isn't honest, and the manager really wouldn't have any way to know. I think we will start on the right path when businesses care more about the results of our work than how long we are sitting around in the office, but there are still those few issues to be resolved.
The same goes for telecommuting with one exception. I would think that technically, we would end up getting more work done if we telecommute rather than go into the office. Personally, I live alone, so there would be no distractions other than what I would create for myself. If I were to sit down and start coding, then I would probably end up working more hours at home sitting on the sofa with a laptop than I would if I were stuck in a cubicle being distracted by everyone surrounding me, and all the additional office politics. I think the only disadvantage to telecommuting is that my boss would not know what I am doing very much, so unless he arranged for me to send him status reports or something, he would be completely in the dark and appear stupid to his boss. Also, there is the cost, as a lot of companies that have employees that telecommute pay twice for equipment. Most people will telecommute only part of the time, but also need a desk to sit at for the days they do need to go in to work. I think we are getting closer though, and if the government gives more tax breaks and such for companies that have a lot of telecommuters, businesses will let more of us do it.
Also, about vacation time. We need more of it. I really don't like how most businesses in the U.S. expect us to work all but 2 weeks out of the year. I heard that in Germany you get 2 months minimum. Why is it that our culture has moved from living life for yourself and family (if you have one) to living to serve a company? I work hard for my employer, and expect them to work hard to make me happy in exchange for it. A lot of what they do is very superficial, and it is much cheaper to spend $200 on a ping pong table than it is to let all the employees have a month of vacation time. They only pay lip service to trying to satisfy the employees, and really just use it as an excuse to try to get us to work longer. We really need some reform in business in general so that the U.S. can rise up to the labor standards of civilized nations.
Other than that, I do think that there are some things that can be done to make us happier. I would think this applies to all industries, not just information technology. I think that since the I.T. field is supposed to be high tech, our jobs and business processes should be also. We have a lot of stuff on the web already for HR, Purchasing, Help Desks, etc in a lot of companies. Why can't the companies themselves live up to the potential of what we are giving them?
Also, I think that Sega has done a good job on some of it's games. Sonic was the fastest game I had ever seen when it came out for the original Genesis. I was impressed and that caused me to want to buy it, even though the SNES had better graphics capabilities, the Genesis seemed to run better. I think Virtua Fighter was one of the first games of it's type, which helped the graphics genre of polygon based 3D games get more popular and mainstream. It's fluid movements impressed me and my friends a lot even though we played it on the Sega 32X. Then, even further back, on my Commodore 64 I had a couple games from Sega. I can't remember the names right now, I think one was Outrun. You drove a Ferrari with a blonde in the passenger side and went past buildings and through the desert and stuff. The other one was Afterburner, which even though the landscape was lame, it was a good game for an 8bit computer system. I'd say these games were ahead of Nintendo quality and I believe they were out a lot earlier than the NES. In any case, Sega has made some really good software, and I hope they continue to do so.
MSCE = Minesweeper Competent Solitaire Expert. I have sat through some of the classes (NT 4.0 Core, MS-SQL Server 7.0 Admin, etc) and yes, I have become a minesweeper and solitaire expert. So, we have plenty of people such as myself that have had training in these complex programs, since we had to do something while the instructor blabbered on about some corny jokes to try to liven up the classes. I'm not MCSE certified, but I am pretty damn good when it comes to solitaire and minesweeper. I have been improving on my freecell skills, and I have already mastered the pinball game that comes with NT. WOOHOO!
What makes you so sure that this money goes to the artists any more than buying CD's do? And now, BMG is going to profit off of artists that it has nothing to do with. So in effect, BMG is out there making money from other major record labels, as well as independent artists. I see how BMG is winning from this, but not artists or fans. It just makes the middle man more powerful, and hopefully Lars and Dr. Dre will fight this even more than they were fighting against their fans before. Whatever happens, this is not a good thing that napster and bmg are teaming up. It screws over the fans and artists worse than before.
There is no reason to think it, considering Mars is relatively Earth-like and life happens very easily.
Life has not happened easily anywhere but Earth that we know of. Unless you have proof of life that has originated somewhere other than Earth, you can't make this statement. We have no reason to think that life occurs because of water, it just happened to be like that on our speck of dust. That is not to say I agree with the person who you replied to, because it very well is possible that there is life, but I won't believe it until there is proof.
: There never were lifeforms on Mars
This is very, very unlikely. Where there is liquid water, there is usually life. Life is made up of the most common elements in the universe, and for life to exist all you really need is water and some basic primordial soup. The chances of Mars never having had even the lowest form of bacteria are incredibly slim.
Again, you are taking science that you learned from watching Star Trek and applying it to real life. We have not found any life outside of Earth at this point in time. We may never find any, as the universe is really big, and, well, we aren't. So, the way a real scientist looks at the situation would be that, yes, it is possible for life to exist outside of Earth. We can not make any assumptions about that life, because we have a very limited amount of data to compare it against. When people base their knowledge on huge assumptions and make giant leaps of logic to support their beliefs, it invalidates the real science. You have to be skeptical, but open to new ideas. Try to understand, that by debunking someone's opinion with your opinion, rather than facts, you can't win. I know that there is no way humans can know anything 100% for certain, but, at least have some proof to back things up before you go around spreading your ideas to be facts. This is addressed to both people above me in this thread. Don't make science into a religion. There is a place for religion in people's lives, and there is a seperate place for science. When you base your "beliefs" on what you want to be true, rather than facts, that is a religion. I am not saying there is not any deities either. There may be, but I have no proof so I can't say.
So I won't be completely off-topic in this thread, let me just say that the only real way to know what's over on Mars is to send some people there. C'mon Nasa...it'd be fun! :o)
Also, lets say the war on drugs was a valid fight for the government to fight. If someone sneaks drugs from Mexico up to Arizona, then eventually crosses the state line to New Mexico, the crimes committed were in Arizona and New Mexico. In this case, rather than having the FBI or someone go after this person, they would be liable by both the Arizona and New Mexico police. The person has committed crimes in two states, making the possible punishment even stronger (should be appealing to the people that think they are safer by stronger punishments.) I guess I am naieve, but I don't see a use for a federal police. The purpose of the federal government was to basically let the states have some semblance of unification, but not pass any real laws other than very basic things to protect the rights that were given to people in the constitution.