I am not going to go into details on this as I have the sites bookmarked at home and forgot some of the facts, however, since it was initially put into service by J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI has always been a corrupt force. Hoover himself was a very dangerous man, and had he lived to see the computer industry we have now, he would probably be keeping his index card files in a database instead. He basically caused the harassment of many people for having "unamerican" opinions and points of view. He was one of the main people that fueled McCarthy to his witch hunt as well. Basically, the FBI serves no purpose, as it is the duty of the states to have the police and other forms of law enforcement, not the federal government. Also, it is a sign of the fact that the federal government is too powerful, because originally they did not have enough laws that they would need to enforce them with police. I would think it is consistant with libertarian logic to eliminate the FBI, but I have not seen anything from Browne or other people within the Libertarian party saying that. I guess the tradition carries on, and the FBI probably has some information to blackmail them with just like Hoover did with all of his enemies.
Or to put it another way, how many Linux based companies are making a profit?
Or to put it even better...how many internet/linux/software based companies that were not established before the big internet craze are making money? Amazon.com? Nope. Redhat? They might be making just enough for their milk-money.
Even the big ones are taking losses, including Apple with their short-lived comeback that is coming to an end. Corel, which had the right idea if their goal was linux for the masses, has gone down the poop-chute.
The market is not good for these companies like it was a year ago. I think after the y2k craze hit, a lot of money was spent/wasted to fix this, and now customers don't have a lot of money to spend on new and exciting stuff. A large number of people made money last year, and got wealthy. These people went out and started their own businesses and went IPO and thought they would be rich and that the money would pour in just because they are technical related. Not so anymore, it's all slowing down and the only ones that will remain are those who have the most money to begin with, as I see all the tech companies taking losses anymore.
Most of us technical people despise managers for being ignorant, illogical, egotistical people that make us waste more time dealing with office politics than with doing our jobs. Unfortunately, this also makes us have a jaded view of politics in general, even though some of the issues are very much more important than "who gets to administer this database." We see the Democrats and Republicans, who are both equally corrupt and equally wrong. The only real differences are issues like abortion and gun control, and that seperates us from being unified in our goals. The thing is, the majority of people agree on issues like free speech and that we send too many soldiers to fight in other countries for no reason. We are all fed up with the amount of taxes taken from us that then go to be used to fund things that we do not support. That is why there are so many slashdot readers that are for the 3rd party candidates, such as Nader and Browne. These guys, while we may not agree with their points of view all the time, are at least honest. We can identify with these guys because they don't say things to try to make us happy, they say the things that they believe in, even if it smacks people in certain powerful lobbies in the face.
However, those that are a bit more pessimistic view the whole process of government as pointless. I have been like that myself at times. We can't realy do anything to fix it, just like in our jobs, so we often want to leave to go somewhere else. I still think I will end up leaving the U.S. to move somewhere, I have a few ideas of places, but I am waiting a bit so I can see if improvements will be made in the U.S. The problem, and sites like slashdot particularly cater to the paranoid people when dealing with news, is that we hear the bad stuff more often than good. Honestly, I don't know if anything good is going on in the government right now, but from what I see and hear they are only sitting around wasting my tax money trying to find ways to take away more rights. Of course I am going to have a negative view towards politics, and since the majority of people in the U.S. seem to be content, nothing will happen to change it.
I think I fall within the standard point of view of slashdot readers. I can be enraged about some things such as laws like the DMCA, but when picking an elected official such as president, I am more apathetic. I am going to vote for Browne as I believe he is closest to what I believe to be right, but I know he won't win. It reminds me of a lyric: "Informed, but powerless."
I think it sorta resembles one of those demon skulls that are burning and fly at you in Doom. It's pretty amusing, but I discount this to be the same as the "face" on Mars. But, just in case it is the monster that spits out the skulls on doom, I am going to go get my BFG ready just in case.
Funding problems are the Feds/NASA's fault.
on
6 New Mars Missions
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· Score: 3
This is my opinion and I may be completely wrong, but if they want money, they have to use capitalism. They should not keep all this stuff secret, but let companies like lockheed martin, boeing (damn that name...too hard to spell, should be "BOING!") and others try to get there first. The most logical means to do so I would think would be to set up a moon base, as that would be the best way to do testing and eventual takeoff to leave the Earth completely. Even though going to Mars may not provide us with anything useful, but it would beat the hell out of the billions of dollars we spend on the entertainment industry now just so we can see some fake movies. I think a lot of people all over the world would be interested to see the first people to step foot on another planet...who knows...I bet others would get involved too...take the little pepsi girl up and let her sing "bah buh bah bap bah" before launching her towards the Sun...anyways, it is just my fantasy...I think a moon base would be a good place to start...it would be pretty neat to be able to look up at the moon and see lights on the dark parts at night...sorta like the death star.:oD Oh well.
How is it that Americans constantly proclaim their amazingly free society when totalitarian legislation like this can become law?
We were a lot more free in some ways in the past. Of course, there have always been stupid things going on, while white males were more free 150 years ago, women were considered 2nd class people, and native americans and black people were considered to be animals. We are also more free than some other countries right now. We are not being run over by tanks for protesting, our police don't kill us as often as the police in some other countries do, although it is getting worse here. And, for the most part we still have some of our rights given to us by the constitution, but that list is getting shorter.
The problem is that most Americans that think we are free do so because their heads are stuck in the past. They don't see what our government has become and how they are getting worse. They don't see that rather than having concerned citizens who are willing to protect the things important to them, we are mostly "consumers" who only care to get what we want to feel good or have fun for a little while. It's not that there are not good people out there, but that the majority only cares about themselves as an individual. That's why most parents are ok with having both the mother and father work 10 hours a day, then come home in time to ship their kids off to soccer practice so they don't have to deal with them. People don't care in the U.S. about anything other than getting more money and more things. We have been converted to a consumer country. Everything is about money, and nothing is about what is good or bad.
I am very fond of how this country was started, and that my life is not in danger as it would be if someone with my attitude were living in China, but that doesn't make the U.S. any less wrong than it is now. I don't know where it all went wrong, but as it currently is, I hate the U.S. but don't know any free place to move to.
I think it depends on where you live...I average around 900KB but usually get higher. As far as the upload goes, it's 256 so even though it's not as fast as the download, I still have at least ISDN quality. It does depend on where you live though...and unfortunately, the phone company is more responsible for the quality of your connection than the ISP is.
I use Telocity in my apartment, and it is very good. They rarely have downtime, and when they do, I call and bitch and they fix it quickly (usually a router down somewhere preventing me from getting to certain sites.) Also, they don't care if you run a server, use NAT to connect your network to the internet, use linux, bsd, or whatever OS you want, as long as you have a clue and don't ask them for help with anything other than the connection from your house to their network.
Eliminate income tax. You have to be kidding me. You really do. I mean, I was dubious about Bush's plan, but that is just insane. Do you have
any concept of what would happen? How many seniors (that's your grandma and grandpa) would be on the street, dying because they don't have ANY money now to try and buy drugs.
You know, if the U.S. were a civilized nation with good people, that wouldn't be an issue because family would take care of their elderly members when they get older. This crap of sending them off to some old folk's home is bad. People are too lazy to care for their own parents and such, even though their parents gave at least 18 years of their lives to raise them. I know that not everyone can afford it, but Social Security payments and Medicaid are a very little help. It would be better if you could invest in stocks, bonds, or just let the money sit in the bank to collect interest.
Now, as far as Browne's perspective, I don't believe he would want to do all this suddenly. The goal is to end income tax, shrink the federal government down to the size the constitution called for, and basically let everyone be in control of their own lives. He wouldn't just suddenly end all the social programs, he would have to have congress backing him to get anything done in the first place. This whole thing would take time to do.
What about underprivileged groups and populations? I guess it is their fault they are poor?
It is their fault if they stay poor. The U.S. provides so much, without government help I mean, that you can go from being poor to middle class easily. And what about the middle and upper classes? A lot of them only appear to be wealthy. They are so far in debt that they end up going bankrupt. In many ways, we end up footing the bill for these people as well.
I hate my tax rate. It is very high. But in an country that has built so much infrastructure (or cruft, whatever), you can't just eliminate it.
You can eliminate the high tax rate if you eliminate the beaurocracy as well. It is not as simple as that, but it is possible.
I hate the leading canidates and only half agree with my favorite. But these people are just bad for this country.
There's noone running for president that is worth anything in my opinion, with the possible exception of Browne, because he wants to get rid of all the excess. The federal government got to the point that it is today over a long period of time. Things progressively got worse and worse until you are where we are today. The only thing is that now, we need someone to clean out the garbage a bit so we can have some of our freedoms back that were taken from us. They are very shocking plans indeed, but in the case of Browne, I think his plan is the one our country needs. I know he won't win this election, and I know that even if he was president he couldn't enact all this stuff, but I have to vote in my best conscience for me, so that I can say I am not responsible for putting Gore or Bush into office.
You know, the global spying network set up between various countries including the U.S. and the U.K. I think they possibly have been snooping on us all in their various ways. It is odd that carnivore has taken all the attention when a conspiracy on an even bigger scale that goes through many different countries should be even bigger news.
Anyways, I wouldn't worry too much. Yes, they are bringing us closer to living in the world written about by George Orwell, but there will always be those of us that will be on the edge of the law, and a danger to the system, to keep the governments in check. Ummm...sorry, don't want to sound like I am making a movie trailer. Anyways, the point is that in any society, when things get bad enough, the people will rise up and overthrow the ruler/government that is oppressing them. This is not happening yet, and that's why some of us who see these crimes against us being committed by our leaders get frustrated when the average person on the street is apathetic. So far we still are pretty free and can do what we want for the most part. We do have less freedoms now than people did 50 years ago though, at least in the U.S.
The official language of any country is the language you use to communicate with the government.
English is the default language, but I have seen forms and such in other languages. Spanish seems to be the next most predominant one where I live, so at the place where I had to go get my driver's license from, their signs were in both English and Spanish. I think that leaving out the official language from our laws makes it easier to deal with situations that sometimes occur in the U.S. I would imagine the U.S. government has forms for the most common languages, or at least translators working in their offices to help people that can't speak English to fill out the forms. Of course, they would also have to help with the amount of functionally illiterate people we have in the U.S. also
You are correct in that quote from the article. The MPAA is saying that the main purpose of deCSS is for pirating. Basically, what has happened is that this software was originally written by someone else to use to make a linux dvd player, 2600 published it, then the MPAA took some people (including 2600) to court saying that this is about piracy. The defendants say it is about making a linux dvd player, and it is within fair rights to be able to do so as there is no commercial linux dvd player on the market, and that reverse engineering is/was legal in the U.S.
I don't think you are an idiot, although I do post usually in a bad mood, but the news media often focuses on the MPAA side of this. It would be like suing a manufacturer of butcher knives, because you say their primary purpose is for killing people. The knife manufacturers will say that the primary purpose is for cutting meat with them. That is where the confusion comes from, in that the MPAA has a lot more money to spend at advertising, and a better reputation than a magazine that is known to be controversial.
We don't need any more laws. The U.S. does not have an official language for a reason.
Originally, the U.S. was a country that was founded upon immigration. In fact, immigration is a strength of a country, but too many people here look at it as a bad thing. Anyways, the thing is, when people come here from another country, their English may or may not be very good. These people are consumers, and need to buy groceries, get housing, work, etc. So, as a result of capitalism, businesses try to cater to the needs of the people. In the U.S. today, you see a lot of places that are bilingual, and have English and Spanish. That is only because there is a market that you need to advertise to native Spanish speakers. I see it like, if you were Buddhist, and a lot of other buddhists lived in your area, you're probably not going to celebrate Christmas. So, let's say Christianity is the official religion of the U.S., it won't matter. Businesses are not going to sell christmas trees in your area, instead they will sell little Buddha statues and such. This isn't infringing on any American's rights, it's just catering to the need of a specific group of people.
I also see this from a free speech point of view. Free speech is free speech, whether it is in English, Spanish, hax0r sp33k, or anything else. The government should never have the right to tell me what I can or can't say. There is no way to make an "official" English to use in all situations, as you will no doubt see from how different the dialects already are between the northeast, southeast, west, etc. I think that the whole "English should be our official language" dogma is often a mask for racism. I have not seen any place of business that has Spanish but not English. Sure, the people working there may not be masters of the language, but if you go to a Mexican restaurant and ask for a coke, they won't bring you sprite any more often than English as a first language waiters will.
Also the fact that the "art" he made was nothing any 2 year old couldn't best. I saw the examples on that website, and unless he has something better that they didn't take pictures of, he just scribbled onto a lot of files, saved them, then printed them. There's nothing artistic about it, nothing clever, and no talent involved. I have better tealpaint images than that, such as the one I drew of an evil tux, but we'll not talk about that.
Let's say that the US bans Capital Punishment. What would you propose to do with the serial killers and other social deviants that would have been put to death under the old system?
Personally, I would vote for sending them to Canada. I don't know what Canada does with their criminals, but, it seems that the Canadians are a little *TOO* law abiding. There's something suspicious going on up there.
Personally, I always just run a long Cat5 cable to the sofa/recliner and use my laptop. The next step in this evolution for me is going to be to get a wireless NIC and hub. That would be pretty useful, and until they make a cheap but decent way to use my TV as a monitor, I won't be needing a keyboard/mouse/gamepad only solution for my computer. It is nice to be able to sit in a comfortable chair in the living room and surf the net with my DSL connection. What other uses are there for wireless keyboards and such?
Yeah but if we blow up Hollywood, we'll lose all the archives of "The Tick" and "What's Happening?"
Seriously though, I don't think that there is anything we, as the average joe, can do to help any more than donating money to the EFF. What we need is a way to sue the MPAA, or the companies that they are represented by, for something that we can win. I'd go for the whole "too much sex and violence" thing for this case, but it could result in some unconstitutional laws against free speech. Perhaps movie theater owners can sue them for anti-competitive business practices when sending movies to theaters...I don't know what really but they are the bad guys, so they have to be doing more wrong than just what we know of.
Your ignorance of the whole situation is showing. You must have been reading the MPAA version of the case only, and not cared to listen to what it's really about.
basically he is trying to make it possible to copy DVDs.
Wrong. He is trying to make it possible to watch DVD's. Also, in any case, if it were about copying DVD's, it is something we are allowed to do as long as we don't do it to make a profit. The DMCA, which was passed by politicians that are in the pockets of the entertainment industries, are against that, but since we have clashing laws now, it is up to the courts to decide.
obviously it just means that someone (or many) will use the code to remove the encryption and pirate DVDs
Yes. And to continue with your logic I will make the following statement: obviously it just means that someone (or many) will use automobiles to go over the speed limit and run over people. The primary use of cars is not so you can speed and run over people, but to get you from point A to point B. The primary purpose of deCSS is so you can make a software DVD player, such as one for linux. Just because it is potentially possible to use something wrong sometimes does not make it bad.
Also, it seems this guy is just doing it for a laugh, trying to become famous in some high level law case.
Yes...haha...those silly things such as freedom of speech and such...what a laugh. Who needs those silly dangerous things? Next some jerk like Goldstein will come say we should learn to think for ourselves! What a joke!
I'd bet quite a bit of money on him not
winning - I'd say he has no chance.
Yeah, there's a big chance of him not winning, since the country is run by a bunch of corporate whores.
Freedom of speech and freedom to do what the hell you want (which is basically what he stands for), is all very well, but the film makers have to have some rights too - i.e. to make money from their efforts, and not be ripped off by crackers trying to make a swift profit out of piracy.
Well, freedom of speech is a RIGHT given by the constitution. There is no right to make a profit, and the intellectual property laws that are currently on the books are a joke. There is no intellectual property to sell, despite what we are told. You either perform a service, or provide a product. The original idea of I.P. was to encourage people to make things to sell, and give them an artificial monopoly for a short amount of time. However, it has become something completely different. Noone has the right to make money, only the right to try.
And, by how you ended it, it is clear that you still know nothing about this court case. It is not about piracy, but about freedom. Not the freedom to do "Whatever the hell you want" but the freedom to do what the law says we can do according to fair use. Some people say that it's about free speech, I don't have a complete opinion about that yet so I won't say anything more about it. However, this definitely is not about piracy, but about consumers rights. In that respect, Goldstein and Nader should be teaming up.:o)
Step 1: There is a small, circular, pink bag of air that you inflate to be the size of a small cushion. Step 2: Place the cushion into the driver's seat of the car, preferrably under the seat cover, in a way that the small pink tab is sticking out. Step 3: Have the driver go to sit down on the seat, and distract them so they do not notice the bulge in their seat. Step 4: Laugh in a childish manner as a loud "poot" sound comes out of the seat. As an added bonus, you can say something else amusing in a childish manner. e.g. "JEEZ! WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR DINNER?!?!?"
As you can see, it will not transport you anywhere, but you'll be having such a good time at someone else's expense, you won't care.
There's a good chance that he will end up completely losing, and that the supreme court will refuse to hear this case. I don't want it to happen, but as cynical of the broken U.S. "Justice" system as I am, I have to think about this. If Emmanuel Goldstein owns 2600, and he ends up needing to pay lawyer fees for the MPAA, it sounds like he stands to lose 2600 as well, at least he would end up completely bankrupt.
Personally, what I would do would be to put 2600 in the hands of someone else, much as Bill Gates did with Microsoft. He can still be as involved with the magazine itself, just not fiscally.
I may be completely wrong about all this since I am not a politician, lawyer, accountant, or some other form of scumbag.:o)
I agree that I have not seen any software without the standard "Use at your own risk" EULA, but I would think (and hope) that none of the medical, air traffic controller, etc. software could have that. They probably do say something to limit their liability to the software and that they are not responsible for hardware problems (unless both hardware and software come from one company, which is an even better situation.) I don't know though. IANAD (I Am Not A Doctor) and have never used any software in which uptime was critical enough that lives depend on it. I am interested to find out how that works though.
I don't really know what type of software they would be using, but let's say that they are talking about diagnostic programs rather than embedded systems. With all the advances and new information that they get in this industry, it would make sense to have everything completely data driven. What it sounds like they would possibly need would be more along the lines of a scripting language for physicians. Of course, I think that it would be better to have something that is more along the lines of a gui, but to make it simpler to understand, we'll just say a scripting language.
Let's say we want to determine the normal white blood cell count in a person's blood, and have some equation to help with this that takes into consideration various things like height, weight, sex, etc. Rather than hard coding it in there, release your medical software with generic scripts that take this stuff into account. The main point of the software is to make scripting easier for physicians, but you also release certain scripts that will already contain a lot of what they want.
An example of this approach is database applications and the databases themselves. The open source solution would be like a database, it would be open source so the engine could be more reliable, but, other people could release open and closed source scripts that sit on top of this database and are only useful because they contain the information the doctors would want. On the other hand, it should be easy enough that any doctor could be a computer neophyte and take a class that lasts for a week, then be able to sit down and build these scripts himself so they have it completely customized.
There's a lot of stuff out there like this already, CRM applications like PeopleSoft, Remedy, etc. are examples for the financial and helpdesk industries. I think we need something like that for the medical industry as well.
What happens when there is a problem with the software? Let's say for example, it is something that does critical calculations to determine how much of a certain painkiller a patient can recieve. Let's say that the calculations are slightly off, and that it causes a problem in a patient. The hospital is going to want someone to hold responsible for this. If it is open source, they can't take all the developers to court, as the hospital should have looked over the source code itself if it was concerned about it.
Now, on the other hand, if there is Micro$oft Dr. Bob or something, and it crashes all the time and such, then Micro$oft can be held responsible, and both the hospital and patients can sue them for making crappy software. Even though this product would be less reliable, it is better from a legal standpoint as they could shift the blame to someone else rather than the hospital.
I know that it sucks this way, but it's the way economics works, as software in this type of situation is more of a service than an end product. I've seen it happen in the business world all the time. When we had a problem at my old job, my former boss was more concerned with who's fault it was rather than how do we fix it.
Also, you would think that (hopefully) accountability would cause the software vendor to make a better project so they don't end up losing money in court. I dunno, that's just my opinion. Feel free to prove me wrong.
I very much disagree with you, and bringing the gun issue up at all is borderline trolling...and this thread has gotten way off topic.
I have a lot I would like to say to refuse you, but I would save that for email or an article that actually has something to do with the gun control subject.
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I am not going to go into details on this as I have the sites bookmarked at home and forgot some of the facts, however, since it was initially put into service by J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI has always been a corrupt force. Hoover himself was a very dangerous man, and had he lived to see the computer industry we have now, he would probably be keeping his index card files in a database instead. He basically caused the harassment of many people for having "unamerican" opinions and points of view. He was one of the main people that fueled McCarthy to his witch hunt as well. Basically, the FBI serves no purpose, as it is the duty of the states to have the police and other forms of law enforcement, not the federal government. Also, it is a sign of the fact that the federal government is too powerful, because originally they did not have enough laws that they would need to enforce them with police. I would think it is consistant with libertarian logic to eliminate the FBI, but I have not seen anything from Browne or other people within the Libertarian party saying that. I guess the tradition carries on, and the FBI probably has some information to blackmail them with just like Hoover did with all of his enemies.
Or to put it even better...how many internet/linux/software based companies that were not established before the big internet craze are making money? Amazon.com? Nope. Redhat? They might be making just enough for their milk-money. Even the big ones are taking losses, including Apple with their short-lived comeback that is coming to an end. Corel, which had the right idea if their goal was linux for the masses, has gone down the poop-chute.
The market is not good for these companies like it was a year ago. I think after the y2k craze hit, a lot of money was spent/wasted to fix this, and now customers don't have a lot of money to spend on new and exciting stuff. A large number of people made money last year, and got wealthy. These people went out and started their own businesses and went IPO and thought they would be rich and that the money would pour in just because they are technical related. Not so anymore, it's all slowing down and the only ones that will remain are those who have the most money to begin with, as I see all the tech companies taking losses anymore.
However, those that are a bit more pessimistic view the whole process of government as pointless. I have been like that myself at times. We can't realy do anything to fix it, just like in our jobs, so we often want to leave to go somewhere else. I still think I will end up leaving the U.S. to move somewhere, I have a few ideas of places, but I am waiting a bit so I can see if improvements will be made in the U.S. The problem, and sites like slashdot particularly cater to the paranoid people when dealing with news, is that we hear the bad stuff more often than good. Honestly, I don't know if anything good is going on in the government right now, but from what I see and hear they are only sitting around wasting my tax money trying to find ways to take away more rights. Of course I am going to have a negative view towards politics, and since the majority of people in the U.S. seem to be content, nothing will happen to change it.
I think I fall within the standard point of view of slashdot readers. I can be enraged about some things such as laws like the DMCA, but when picking an elected official such as president, I am more apathetic. I am going to vote for Browne as I believe he is closest to what I believe to be right, but I know he won't win. It reminds me of a lyric: "Informed, but powerless."
I think it sorta resembles one of those demon skulls that are burning and fly at you in Doom. It's pretty amusing, but I discount this to be the same as the "face" on Mars. But, just in case it is the monster that spits out the skulls on doom, I am going to go get my BFG ready just in case.
This is my opinion and I may be completely wrong, but if they want money, they have to use capitalism. They should not keep all this stuff secret, but let companies like lockheed martin, boeing (damn that name...too hard to spell, should be "BOING!") and others try to get there first. The most logical means to do so I would think would be to set up a moon base, as that would be the best way to do testing and eventual takeoff to leave the Earth completely. Even though going to Mars may not provide us with anything useful, but it would beat the hell out of the billions of dollars we spend on the entertainment industry now just so we can see some fake movies. I think a lot of people all over the world would be interested to see the first people to step foot on another planet...who knows...I bet others would get involved too...take the little pepsi girl up and let her sing "bah buh bah bap bah" before launching her towards the Sun...anyways, it is just my fantasy...I think a moon base would be a good place to start...it would be pretty neat to be able to look up at the moon and see lights on the dark parts at night...sorta like the death star. :oD Oh well.
We were a lot more free in some ways in the past. Of course, there have always been stupid things going on, while white males were more free 150 years ago, women were considered 2nd class people, and native americans and black people were considered to be animals. We are also more free than some other countries right now. We are not being run over by tanks for protesting, our police don't kill us as often as the police in some other countries do, although it is getting worse here. And, for the most part we still have some of our rights given to us by the constitution, but that list is getting shorter.
The problem is that most Americans that think we are free do so because their heads are stuck in the past. They don't see what our government has become and how they are getting worse. They don't see that rather than having concerned citizens who are willing to protect the things important to them, we are mostly "consumers" who only care to get what we want to feel good or have fun for a little while. It's not that there are not good people out there, but that the majority only cares about themselves as an individual. That's why most parents are ok with having both the mother and father work 10 hours a day, then come home in time to ship their kids off to soccer practice so they don't have to deal with them. People don't care in the U.S. about anything other than getting more money and more things. We have been converted to a consumer country. Everything is about money, and nothing is about what is good or bad.
I am very fond of how this country was started, and that my life is not in danger as it would be if someone with my attitude were living in China, but that doesn't make the U.S. any less wrong than it is now. I don't know where it all went wrong, but as it currently is, I hate the U.S. but don't know any free place to move to.
I think it depends on where you live...I average around 900KB but usually get higher. As far as the upload goes, it's 256 so even though it's not as fast as the download, I still have at least ISDN quality. It does depend on where you live though...and unfortunately, the phone company is more responsible for the quality of your connection than the ISP is.
I use Telocity in my apartment, and it is very good. They rarely have downtime, and when they do, I call and bitch and they fix it quickly (usually a router down somewhere preventing me from getting to certain sites.) Also, they don't care if you run a server, use NAT to connect your network to the internet, use linux, bsd, or whatever OS you want, as long as you have a clue and don't ask them for help with anything other than the connection from your house to their network.
You know, if the U.S. were a civilized nation with good people, that wouldn't be an issue because family would take care of their elderly members when they get older. This crap of sending them off to some old folk's home is bad. People are too lazy to care for their own parents and such, even though their parents gave at least 18 years of their lives to raise them. I know that not everyone can afford it, but Social Security payments and Medicaid are a very little help. It would be better if you could invest in stocks, bonds, or just let the money sit in the bank to collect interest.
Now, as far as Browne's perspective, I don't believe he would want to do all this suddenly. The goal is to end income tax, shrink the federal government down to the size the constitution called for, and basically let everyone be in control of their own lives. He wouldn't just suddenly end all the social programs, he would have to have congress backing him to get anything done in the first place. This whole thing would take time to do.
What about underprivileged groups and populations? I guess it is their fault they are poor?
It is their fault if they stay poor. The U.S. provides so much, without government help I mean, that you can go from being poor to middle class easily. And what about the middle and upper classes? A lot of them only appear to be wealthy. They are so far in debt that they end up going bankrupt. In many ways, we end up footing the bill for these people as well.
I hate my tax rate. It is very high. But in an country that has built so much infrastructure (or cruft, whatever), you can't just eliminate it.
You can eliminate the high tax rate if you eliminate the beaurocracy as well. It is not as simple as that, but it is possible.
I hate the leading canidates and only half agree with my favorite. But these people are just bad for this country.
There's noone running for president that is worth anything in my opinion, with the possible exception of Browne, because he wants to get rid of all the excess. The federal government got to the point that it is today over a long period of time. Things progressively got worse and worse until you are where we are today. The only thing is that now, we need someone to clean out the garbage a bit so we can have some of our freedoms back that were taken from us. They are very shocking plans indeed, but in the case of Browne, I think his plan is the one our country needs. I know he won't win this election, and I know that even if he was president he couldn't enact all this stuff, but I have to vote in my best conscience for me, so that I can say I am not responsible for putting Gore or Bush into office.
Anyways, I wouldn't worry too much. Yes, they are bringing us closer to living in the world written about by George Orwell, but there will always be those of us that will be on the edge of the law, and a danger to the system, to keep the governments in check. Ummm...sorry, don't want to sound like I am making a movie trailer. Anyways, the point is that in any society, when things get bad enough, the people will rise up and overthrow the ruler/government that is oppressing them. This is not happening yet, and that's why some of us who see these crimes against us being committed by our leaders get frustrated when the average person on the street is apathetic. So far we still are pretty free and can do what we want for the most part. We do have less freedoms now than people did 50 years ago though, at least in the U.S.
English is the default language, but I have seen forms and such in other languages. Spanish seems to be the next most predominant one where I live, so at the place where I had to go get my driver's license from, their signs were in both English and Spanish. I think that leaving out the official language from our laws makes it easier to deal with situations that sometimes occur in the U.S. I would imagine the U.S. government has forms for the most common languages, or at least translators working in their offices to help people that can't speak English to fill out the forms. Of course, they would also have to help with the amount of functionally illiterate people we have in the U.S. also
I don't think you are an idiot, although I do post usually in a bad mood, but the news media often focuses on the MPAA side of this. It would be like suing a manufacturer of butcher knives, because you say their primary purpose is for killing people. The knife manufacturers will say that the primary purpose is for cutting meat with them. That is where the confusion comes from, in that the MPAA has a lot more money to spend at advertising, and a better reputation than a magazine that is known to be controversial.
Originally, the U.S. was a country that was founded upon immigration. In fact, immigration is a strength of a country, but too many people here look at it as a bad thing. Anyways, the thing is, when people come here from another country, their English may or may not be very good. These people are consumers, and need to buy groceries, get housing, work, etc. So, as a result of capitalism, businesses try to cater to the needs of the people. In the U.S. today, you see a lot of places that are bilingual, and have English and Spanish. That is only because there is a market that you need to advertise to native Spanish speakers. I see it like, if you were Buddhist, and a lot of other buddhists lived in your area, you're probably not going to celebrate Christmas. So, let's say Christianity is the official religion of the U.S., it won't matter. Businesses are not going to sell christmas trees in your area, instead they will sell little Buddha statues and such. This isn't infringing on any American's rights, it's just catering to the need of a specific group of people.
I also see this from a free speech point of view. Free speech is free speech, whether it is in English, Spanish, hax0r sp33k, or anything else. The government should never have the right to tell me what I can or can't say. There is no way to make an "official" English to use in all situations, as you will no doubt see from how different the dialects already are between the northeast, southeast, west, etc. I think that the whole "English should be our official language" dogma is often a mask for racism. I have not seen any place of business that has Spanish but not English. Sure, the people working there may not be masters of the language, but if you go to a Mexican restaurant and ask for a coke, they won't bring you sprite any more often than English as a first language waiters will.
Also the fact that the "art" he made was nothing any 2 year old couldn't best. I saw the examples on that website, and unless he has something better that they didn't take pictures of, he just scribbled onto a lot of files, saved them, then printed them. There's nothing artistic about it, nothing clever, and no talent involved. I have better tealpaint images than that, such as the one I drew of an evil tux, but we'll not talk about that.
Personally, I would vote for sending them to Canada. I don't know what Canada does with their criminals, but, it seems that the Canadians are a little *TOO* law abiding. There's something suspicious going on up there.
I changed the subject and didn't look at the word laptop again. Sorry. :o)
Personally, I always just run a long Cat5 cable to the sofa/recliner and use my laptop. The next step in this evolution for me is going to be to get a wireless NIC and hub. That would be pretty useful, and until they make a cheap but decent way to use my TV as a monitor, I won't be needing a keyboard/mouse/gamepad only solution for my computer. It is nice to be able to sit in a comfortable chair in the living room and surf the net with my DSL connection. What other uses are there for wireless keyboards and such?
Seriously though, I don't think that there is anything we, as the average joe, can do to help any more than donating money to the EFF. What we need is a way to sue the MPAA, or the companies that they are represented by, for something that we can win. I'd go for the whole "too much sex and violence" thing for this case, but it could result in some unconstitutional laws against free speech. Perhaps movie theater owners can sue them for anti-competitive business practices when sending movies to theaters...I don't know what really but they are the bad guys, so they have to be doing more wrong than just what we know of.
basically he is trying to make it possible to copy DVDs.
Wrong. He is trying to make it possible to watch DVD's. Also, in any case, if it were about copying DVD's, it is something we are allowed to do as long as we don't do it to make a profit. The DMCA, which was passed by politicians that are in the pockets of the entertainment industries, are against that, but since we have clashing laws now, it is up to the courts to decide.
obviously it just means that someone (or many) will use the code to remove the encryption and pirate DVDs
Yes. And to continue with your logic I will make the following statement: obviously it just means that someone (or many) will use automobiles to go over the speed limit and run over people. The primary use of cars is not so you can speed and run over people, but to get you from point A to point B. The primary purpose of deCSS is so you can make a software DVD player, such as one for linux. Just because it is potentially possible to use something wrong sometimes does not make it bad.
Also, it seems this guy is just doing it for a laugh, trying to become famous in some high level law case.
Yes...haha...those silly things such as freedom of speech and such...what a laugh. Who needs those silly dangerous things? Next some jerk like Goldstein will come say we should learn to think for ourselves! What a joke!
I'd bet quite a bit of money on him not winning - I'd say he has no chance.
Yeah, there's a big chance of him not winning, since the country is run by a bunch of corporate whores.
Freedom of speech and freedom to do what the hell you want (which is basically what he stands for), is all very well, but the film makers have to have some rights too - i.e. to make money from their efforts, and not be ripped off by crackers trying to make a swift profit out of piracy.
Well, freedom of speech is a RIGHT given by the constitution. There is no right to make a profit, and the intellectual property laws that are currently on the books are a joke. There is no intellectual property to sell, despite what we are told. You either perform a service, or provide a product. The original idea of I.P. was to encourage people to make things to sell, and give them an artificial monopoly for a short amount of time. However, it has become something completely different. Noone has the right to make money, only the right to try.
And, by how you ended it, it is clear that you still know nothing about this court case. It is not about piracy, but about freedom. Not the freedom to do "Whatever the hell you want" but the freedom to do what the law says we can do according to fair use. Some people say that it's about free speech, I don't have a complete opinion about that yet so I won't say anything more about it. However, this definitely is not about piracy, but about consumers rights. In that respect, Goldstein and Nader should be teaming up. :o)
Step 1: There is a small, circular, pink bag of air that you inflate to be the size of a small cushion.
Step 2: Place the cushion into the driver's seat of the car, preferrably under the seat cover, in a way that the small pink tab is sticking out.
Step 3: Have the driver go to sit down on the seat, and distract them so they do not notice the bulge in their seat.
Step 4: Laugh in a childish manner as a loud "poot" sound comes out of the seat. As an added bonus, you can say something else amusing in a childish manner. e.g. "JEEZ! WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR DINNER?!?!?"
As you can see, it will not transport you anywhere, but you'll be having such a good time at someone else's expense, you won't care.
Personally, what I would do would be to put 2600 in the hands of someone else, much as Bill Gates did with Microsoft. He can still be as involved with the magazine itself, just not fiscally.
I may be completely wrong about all this since I am not a politician, lawyer, accountant, or some other form of scumbag. :o)
I agree that I have not seen any software without the standard "Use at your own risk" EULA, but I would think (and hope) that none of the medical, air traffic controller, etc. software could have that. They probably do say something to limit their liability to the software and that they are not responsible for hardware problems (unless both hardware and software come from one company, which is an even better situation.) I don't know though. IANAD (I Am Not A Doctor) and have never used any software in which uptime was critical enough that lives depend on it. I am interested to find out how that works though.
Let's say we want to determine the normal white blood cell count in a person's blood, and have some equation to help with this that takes into consideration various things like height, weight, sex, etc. Rather than hard coding it in there, release your medical software with generic scripts that take this stuff into account. The main point of the software is to make scripting easier for physicians, but you also release certain scripts that will already contain a lot of what they want.
An example of this approach is database applications and the databases themselves. The open source solution would be like a database, it would be open source so the engine could be more reliable, but, other people could release open and closed source scripts that sit on top of this database and are only useful because they contain the information the doctors would want. On the other hand, it should be easy enough that any doctor could be a computer neophyte and take a class that lasts for a week, then be able to sit down and build these scripts himself so they have it completely customized.
There's a lot of stuff out there like this already, CRM applications like PeopleSoft, Remedy, etc. are examples for the financial and helpdesk industries. I think we need something like that for the medical industry as well.
Now, on the other hand, if there is Micro$oft Dr. Bob or something, and it crashes all the time and such, then Micro$oft can be held responsible, and both the hospital and patients can sue them for making crappy software. Even though this product would be less reliable, it is better from a legal standpoint as they could shift the blame to someone else rather than the hospital.
I know that it sucks this way, but it's the way economics works, as software in this type of situation is more of a service than an end product. I've seen it happen in the business world all the time. When we had a problem at my old job, my former boss was more concerned with who's fault it was rather than how do we fix it.
Also, you would think that (hopefully) accountability would cause the software vendor to make a better project so they don't end up losing money in court. I dunno, that's just my opinion. Feel free to prove me wrong.
I have a lot I would like to say to refuse you, but I would save that for email or an article that actually has something to do with the gun control subject.