Corporations are not legally considered a person, they simply have the ability to enter into certain legal proceedings the same as a person: contracts, bankruptcy, liens, etc. Both people and corporations are subject to different laws in many cases, however, and are in no way "legally the same".
- Well, I do contact her representatives for related media; I have a collection of publicity packages as well. I try to collect the various media (laserdisc, VHS, Beta, DVD, etc) plus the associated press kits for that piece. I also own the original photos used in her audition for Rocky.
- Toaster? Use an oven. When you're toasting loafs of bread at a time, it's much better. Disable your smoke alarm first, however. Also remember to let them cool before putting them back in the bags (unless you're making survival kits).
- I've owned four. The last didn't cross the country with me.:(
- I have purchased well over a hundred pairs of fishnet stockings. Not only did I sell them to cast members (I used to give them away, but that proved to be a mistake), I've also bought them in bulk for myself. Plus a float that I helped make and got a bunch of fishnets to decorate with. If I've been in a residence long enough, you can move any random piece of furnature and find either sequins or fishnets. I also have a signature fishnet style: duct tape tops with silver chain garters.
To answer your question "How far does this hobby extend, precisely", it's about the same as any person who is a very serious fan about anything. Some people collect coins, some people collect sports team items, I collect items related to a particular stage production, the movie version, its s-equal, and all the actors that played in them. For instance, I have one of the only two pieces of chewing gum that Meat Loaf has accidentally spit out during a concert (he always chews gum when singing).
So, yes. I'm happy that I can now get a higher quality copy of the next time Barry Bostwick hosts the Independence Day celebration in Washington DC or there's a VH1 "special" that has the Nescafe commercials with Anthony Stewart Head. I happen to live in a small town that hundreds of people travel to in order to park outside the stadium, paint themselves blue and white and cook hot dogs and then (maybe) watch a college football team. What I do is no more strange, and I do have a life outside of Rocky (and have put it on hold for years at a time when there have been other priorities). But I do enjoy it.
I collect Rocky Horror and related items. Meat Loaf just released Bat out of Hell 3, and did the circuit of the Today Show, Jimmy Kimmel, etc. I've been recording them at Best quality (+2 minutes on both sides), and then burning them off to DVD. Even with a good DVD burner, you lose quite a bit of quality after the double (or triple, if it's an analog channel) decode/encode cycle. Many of the Lifetime movies that Barry Bostwick stars in are simply unavailable on any media.
Basically, if you have a reason, this is quite nice. Even if you don't, quickly copying them to your harddrive and playing them on your laptop is faster, easier and cheaper than burning a DVD-R in realtime and then playing it on your laptop. I literally was supposed to open up my TiVo this past weekend to toss ssh and the ty streamer software on the hard drive. This is much much easier.
Okay, I just finished downloading a copy of a show. Let's test it...
It works fine. I now have a nice interlaced, non-gamma corrected mpeg file (i.e., simply unencrypted, exactly what I wanted). Fantastic and quite fast.
By the way, a quick nod to TarZxf (aka Neal), who gave me the TiVo as a going away present. Best damn gift I've gotten.
Gee, my laptops both suspend when I close them and hibernate when I hit the power switch. Typing this right now with an mp3 player running and my mail coming in, my CPU is running at only 800Mhz according to the nice little popup on KDE's Power Manager. It'll go up (and use more power) if I need it... just like all other modern operating systems.
I'm running Kubuntu 6.10, and I know these features are also available on SUSE.
On the flip side, I'm sure if some company issued some sort of OS patch to my fiance's research cluster that slowed them down at all, there would be quite a few pissed off grad students, post docs and a professor. Repeat that scene across the country in every university. They need to use their full power at full speed for 24 hour number crunching (she's modeling the quantum interaction of a protein). Not all computers are used in the same way, enforcing a particular profile by silent software update would be a bad idea.
It's true! The QWERTY keyboard was designed to slow down typing... it was because when fleeing from the killer with a hook, and you were hiding in the sewers you'd not want the giant alligators to hear you typing. While nowadays you have to text your babysitter to make sure she didn't microwave the baby.
Do you think that a company that produces and sells OS/FS products and funds quite a bit of their development is not part of the community? Quite a bit of KDE came out of the coffers of Novell (and SUSE before them). What then would be the criteria for being a OS/FS company?
The existence of a community doesn't imply any particular level or type of ethics. There are plenty of communities that we might consider unethical.
What one thinks doesn't matter, the ethics of certain situations are relative. What is appropriate and expected at Rocky Horror is not at a formal family wedding. Other than the rice, at any rate. The community ethics referred to here are those of the OS/FS communities. Which of course brings us to your point...
Keep in mind that distributing GPL'd software requires an agreement to follow the terms. Agreeing to terms is not the same as agreeing with the principles they are based on. If you ever have rented an apartement, you have probably agreed to a rental agreement, but it's not likely that every provision of the license you agree with in principle.
Which is the initial "if it's legal, it's okay" argument. That's fine if you're purely approaching it from a legal standpoint, but if something happens to an apartment I'm renting and it's clearly my fault, I'll take responsibility... even if it's not legally required. Why? Because when I agreed to become a tenant, I took upon myself legal and ethical responsibilities. I can't simply find some loophole and screw them over, even if it's legally allowed. The relationship expected is pretty clear: they let me stay there and I pay them and treat the place decently.
It's likely that the GNU libraries contain some BSD'd code. This is perfectly legal since the BSD license allows the software to be extended without restriction. Does the fact the FSF doesn't follow the spirit of unrestricted contributions that the BSD license is based on mean that they are unethical or are merely following "letter of the law"?
Containing some code is generally seen as okay. Taking a BSD library and merely adding a couple lines of code and releasing it under GPL is generally seen as not okay. That would be an example of the generally accepted ethics of the OS/FS community. You can, of course, do exactly that, but many would see that as being on par with... oh... say... making a deal with Microsoft to protect your distro from patent lawsuits while leaving derivatives liable. It may be legal, but it certainly doesn't fit the whole "the code is shared and everybody can use it equally" ethics common to most Free Software and Open Source licenses. They may handle the details and caveats differently, but the fundamental "share equally" idea is there in pretty much all of them, a core concept that this deal goes against.
To take something that somebody freely gives you and use it in a manner contrary to what is expected is legal and also wrong, no matter if it's taking and then selling soup kitchen food, pawning an engagement ring to fund running off with another guy, or taking money your grandmother gave you to pay for college and running off to Las Vegas with it. All of that said, here's the final and key point I want you (ClosedSource) to consider:
Is it unethical? Drop the legal argument for a moment. You're certainly in the right that it's legal. Ignore the easy question for a moment. Is this move by Novell an unethical one under the "share equally" philosophy of Free Software and Open Source? The legal question is simply boring... the real interesting debate is "does this violate the intent of the people who freely made this for Novell to use and sell?" There's no clear answer there.
Bullshit. First, Novell isn't making deals on behalf of others. Second, Novell have every right to make the deal they made -- if the Samba folks don't like it, they should have said so in their copyright license. They didn't.
I agree wholeheartedly. What should have been said is that Novell, by making this deal, is behaving against the ethics of Open Source and Free Software. Microsoft is a perfectly legal company... and has engaged in behavior that many consider highly unethical. Thus many people think poorly of their business dealing. This is a matter of ethics, not a matter of law or rights.
Ethics is part of business. I know I've had the opportunity to screw over my business partner many times in the nine years we've been working together. I'm sure he has as well. We have both behaved as ethically as we possible and we trust each other. The same goes for the companies that we have brokered deals with. We behave in an ethical manner and we receive business because of our reputation. Microsoft has partnered with many companies and subsequently screwed them over. That should be a consideration when dealing with them, and Novell -- as an OS/FS company -- is now dealing with them. This will certainly chill relations with the people who develop the product they sell, and likely some customers. Dealing with unethical people or companies does impart a certain taint to you and your product. That is what is occurring here, not a violation of law.
Just because you have a right to do something does not make it right to do.
It's safe enough. It's reasonable to expect coffee to be scalding hot, to burn you if you spill it.
I am not a small child; I want the pointy scissors, the dangerous superglue instead of paste and if I need to spray for bugs, give me something that is poison. I can take the responsibility if I eat it.
The problem has nothing to do with the water being "safe" or not... the problem is people demanding that it be "safe" and that "safe" status enforced through legal action. I'd imagine far more people have died choking on McDonalds food than have been harmed by their hot coffee. I'd bet that more people have died in the drive through, and I'll bet there are more health related issues from their fatty foods than from the temperature of any beverage.
There does not have to be a balance of safety, it just has to be clear what it is. Bug spray is poison, scissors are sharp, coffee is hot. Ignore these things and you will hurt yourself, but the problem isn't the bug spray maker, the office supply store or the restaurant... the problem is the assumption that it is incumbent upon the world to provide a "child safe" environment for the adult population. Put the bug spray in the coffee cup and sell it as coffee, and I'll agree that there's a problem, but that's not what happened. Dangerous things should exist and be sold in the world -- and yes, people will get hurt as a result. That's called adult life.
Or my 1Mhz 6502 with two 100K floppy drives that I used to run my BBS on. Yes, toy is relative. Later I upgraded to 8086 Corona luggables for each node. Nice and speedy.
By the way, why did you leave out the voodoo man? I'm just asking.:) [I assume you meant "didn't"]
I specifically said why: because in this discussion, somebody would have jumped in with an appeal that scientists don't know what they are talking about because they are part of some sort of anti-drug conspiracy. As an example: the concept that because marijuana is natural it has to be harmless. This is a common mantra of what I refer to as "woo woo" thinking. I lived in Northern California for a time, and I've learned to quickly toss a point or two in to block off those lines of debate.
You may not be superstitious, I may not be superstitious, but assuming that everybody in a public forum is rational and trusts the scientific process is not logical either. I tossed in a group that is not "The Man" for the people who aren't rational. Particularly when there is quite a bit of wishful thinking and questionable sources regarding the subject, citing multiple unconnected sources is a good idea. "AMA or your local doctor" would have generated a slew of comments about how the medical profession is purely interested in keeping people paying them.
Perhaps we're both cynical, just in different ways. Regardless, we're polite about it.:)
How about the fact that there is fetal marijuana dependency? If it is solely a compulsive issue, why do newborn babies go through withdrawl?
It's hard to find a good non-JAMA citation for dependency (i.e., not a scare-monger site run for the "War on Drugs"). JAMA is not online without a login; if you have a decent library or University nearby, I'd use their resources. There is some information, however, in the AMA's report on medical marijuana, which is online:
Depending on the measures and age group studied, 4% to 9% of marijuana users fulfill diagnostic criteria for substance dependence. Although some marijuana users develop dependence, they appear to be less likely to do so than users of alcohol and nicotine, and the abstinence syndrome is less severe.4,188,190 Like other drugs, dependence is more likely to occur in individuals with co-morbid psychiatric conditions.
Note that the article is not anti-marijuana. It dismisses the claims that marijuana is a gateway drug and questions several of the health effects such as it being an immunosuppressant (it may be, but the studies are not conclusive, and many other drugs are immunosuppressive and in common use).
4) Joy JE, Watson S Jr, Benson JA Jr, eds. Marijuana and Medicine. Assessing the Science Base. Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Health, Institute of Medicine. National Academy Press: Washington, DC; 1999
188) Hall W, Solowij N. Adverse effects of cannabis. Lancet. 1998;352:1611-1616.
190) Anthony JC, Warner LA, Kessler RC. Comparative epidemiology of dependence on tobacco, alcohol, controlled substances, and inhalants: basic findings from the National Comorbidity Survey. Exp Clin Psychopharmacology. 1994;2:244-268.
That's pretty much as deep into this argument as I'd like to get on Slashdot, but there's plenty there to spend an hour or three digging at a local library if you'd like to know more. Like some other hotly disputed topics (gun control, abortion statistics), Google isn't much use here unless you're simply looking for quotes to support your own preconceptions. Personally, I've read about cannabinoid dependency in reputable journals and am fairly satisfied it exists and isn't a major problem, even among users. Some of the receptors have been identified; it's quite possible there will be withdrawl medications, although dependency is fairly rare even in active users (as I've stated several times) so there's the question as to how useful a withdrawl drug would be. A much more likely outcome of the research will be a class of medications that use the cannabinoid receptors to produce beneficial effects without the adverse side effects or dosing issues related to marijuana use.
Brilliant... in which case you go to the AMA, just like I suggested as a second option. Or does pointing out several venues with various backgrounds now count against a point?
In fact, the specific reason I cited both was because had I cited the AMA only, somebody would have ranted against the scientists as being part of the medical-industrial complex that denies our connection to nature or some such crap. Interesting how you just pick the one you disagree with, apparantly just to be disagreeable. I hand you both practical and spiritual *and* science and medical based sources and you choose the one you disagree with and ignore that I suggested the other as well.
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Evan "Married to a quantum chemist, and she's not part of any religion or conspiracy, nor are her fellow researchers".
Of course the Trail of Tears was 30 years before the Civil War and was only for one single tribe... I need to proofread, which would mean I wouldn't post during the work day, which would be a Good Thing for all concerned. I was writing that with three interruptions. What the heck was the name of the relocation after the Civil War? Any CW buffs in the crowd?
I seem to be reliving history due to having failed to learn it. Oops.:)
Most land was nicely shared and trade was common in the early days (there are horror stories early on, but there are horror stories like Powelton Village/West Philly, Stonewall, Kent State and others in the "peaceful" current day). That sort of fell apart when they sided with the Confederate States of America rather than the United States of America. After the earlier issues with other tribes assisting the French, the Civil War destroyed most relationships between the European Americans and Native Americans. The Trail of Tears and the Indian Territories were the horrible and over-vindictive repercussions for the Native Americans, much like the burning of the South and highly questionable trials and massive ad-hoc jails with high death rates were the repercussions for the CSA. Remember, Lincoln was the first and most recent president to suspend Habeas corpus and declare citizens enemy combatants. Something about a righteous war always abhors liberty.
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Evan "Those who have failed to learn history..."
It is very much physiologically addictive. It's harder to be addicted, sometimes taking decades (or for some people, months). Many people never become addicted despite heavy use. Similar to how many people drink heavily through college or have a drink after work everyday for a decade but only some come out as alcoholics who have to go through a life long recovery process.
Few people get addicted, but those that do face serious problems going off and do suffer all the difficult withdrawl symptoms. Personally, I see it as not addictive enough to warrant legal issues: there are other legal substances with addictive properties that tend to cause addiction much faster (tobacco) or have harsher recovery issues (alcohol). Plus it has never been shown to cause lung cancer, which kicks it ahead of tobacco in my eyes (emphysema and some other diseases are still an issue).
Hit some Al-Anon or NA meetings if you question any of this. They are quite friendly and very very frank, employing neither the scare tactics of the "drugs are sin" crowd or the dismissiveness of the "drugs are safe" crowd. Or if you doubt them, read the AMA guidelines and how the diagnostic criteria of addiction and related issues (like obsessive use and dependency) are laid out, although it's been changed recently due to the genetic basis for addiction being more precisely identified.
I envision a geek approaching the girl he likes, getting sudden sweaty palms, getting a jolt through his nervous system and then going into a grand mal seizure, complete with loss of bowel function and projectile vomiting.
Kind of like how I pictured Steve Mann going down in a supersoaker fight.
The point is, this is a subject that a quick visit to the library or simple Google query could turn up plenty of results on. It's not surprising, new or unusual. It's a bit like posting how to boil an egg... there are people who could benefit, but the subject is common enough to not warrant a post.
This is like an Ask Slashdot "How do I format a hard drive?". Yes, it's something that many people don't know how to do, but it's also not hard to find the information how, and it is quite common. Same goes for the various lost wax casting techniques using resin, metal or other materials... heck, the full instructions are usually on the boxes of materials that you can pick up at any crafts or jewelry supply store.
I will support you in a slightly different vein... there was the followup question looking for other neat costume ideas. kfg could have made his comment about how the ring wasn't really special and then mentioned something neat... like using textured hard floor mats for trucks as part of costume armor (something I've done but very rarely seen done elsewhere).
Lincoln also suspended habeas corpus (and later regretted it). Wars seem to grow the federal government and erode the power and liberty of local governments and individuals. World War II also introduced a ton of federal agencies that will never go away.
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Evan "old enough story to get a bit offtopic, I think"
The same thing happened much earlier in the history of Unix. There was a great filesystem called DonnerFS: it ran great at AT&T, but was lost when Berkley tried to rewrite it. The BSD version kept eating not only data, but it's own inodes. Pretty bad... it just never survived the trip to the west coast.
Slashdot Mirror
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Evan "On the board of two corporations"
- Well, I do contact her representatives for related media; I have a collection of publicity packages as well. I try to collect the various media (laserdisc, VHS, Beta, DVD, etc) plus the associated press kits for that piece. I also own the original photos used in her audition for Rocky. :(
- Toaster? Use an oven. When you're toasting loafs of bread at a time, it's much better. Disable your smoke alarm first, however. Also remember to let them cool before putting them back in the bags (unless you're making survival kits).
- I've owned four. The last didn't cross the country with me.
- I have purchased well over a hundred pairs of fishnet stockings. Not only did I sell them to cast members (I used to give them away, but that proved to be a mistake), I've also bought them in bulk for myself. Plus a float that I helped make and got a bunch of fishnets to decorate with. If I've been in a residence long enough, you can move any random piece of furnature and find either sequins or fishnets. I also have a signature fishnet style: duct tape tops with silver chain garters.
To answer your question "How far does this hobby extend, precisely", it's about the same as any person who is a very serious fan about anything. Some people collect coins, some people collect sports team items, I collect items related to a particular stage production, the movie version, its s-equal, and all the actors that played in them. For instance, I have one of the only two pieces of chewing gum that Meat Loaf has accidentally spit out during a concert (he always chews gum when singing).
So, yes. I'm happy that I can now get a higher quality copy of the next time Barry Bostwick hosts the Independence Day celebration in Washington DC or there's a VH1 "special" that has the Nescafe commercials with Anthony Stewart Head. I happen to live in a small town that hundreds of people travel to in order to park outside the stadium, paint themselves blue and white and cook hot dogs and then (maybe) watch a college football team. What I do is no more strange, and I do have a life outside of Rocky (and have put it on hold for years at a time when there have been other priorities). But I do enjoy it.
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Evan
Basically, if you have a reason, this is quite nice. Even if you don't, quickly copying them to your harddrive and playing them on your laptop is faster, easier and cheaper than burning a DVD-R in realtime and then playing it on your laptop. I literally was supposed to open up my TiVo this past weekend to toss ssh and the ty streamer software on the hard drive. This is much much easier.
Okay, I just finished downloading a copy of a show. Let's test it...
It works fine. I now have a nice interlaced, non-gamma corrected mpeg file (i.e., simply unencrypted, exactly what I wanted). Fantastic and quite fast.
By the way, a quick nod to TarZxf (aka Neal), who gave me the TiVo as a going away present. Best damn gift I've gotten.
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Evan
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Evan
The lab uses Linux.
--Evan
I'm running Kubuntu 6.10, and I know these features are also available on SUSE.
On the flip side, I'm sure if some company issued some sort of OS patch to my fiance's research cluster that slowed them down at all, there would be quite a few pissed off grad students, post docs and a professor. Repeat that scene across the country in every university. They need to use their full power at full speed for 24 hour number crunching (she's modeling the quantum interaction of a protein). Not all computers are used in the same way, enforcing a particular profile by silent software update would be a bad idea.
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Evan
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Evan
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Evan
Do you think that a company that produces and sells OS/FS products and funds quite a bit of their development is not part of the community? Quite a bit of KDE came out of the coffers of Novell (and SUSE before them). What then would be the criteria for being a OS/FS company?
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Evan
What one thinks doesn't matter, the ethics of certain situations are relative. What is appropriate and expected at Rocky Horror is not at a formal family wedding. Other than the rice, at any rate. The community ethics referred to here are those of the OS/FS communities. Which of course brings us to your point...
Keep in mind that distributing GPL'd software requires an agreement to follow the terms. Agreeing to terms is not the same as agreeing with the principles they are based on. If you ever have rented an apartement, you have probably agreed to a rental agreement, but it's not likely that every provision of the license you agree with in principle.
Which is the initial "if it's legal, it's okay" argument. That's fine if you're purely approaching it from a legal standpoint, but if something happens to an apartment I'm renting and it's clearly my fault, I'll take responsibility... even if it's not legally required. Why? Because when I agreed to become a tenant, I took upon myself legal and ethical responsibilities. I can't simply find some loophole and screw them over, even if it's legally allowed. The relationship expected is pretty clear: they let me stay there and I pay them and treat the place decently.
It's likely that the GNU libraries contain some BSD'd code. This is perfectly legal since the BSD license allows the software to be extended without restriction. Does the fact the FSF doesn't follow the spirit of unrestricted contributions that the BSD license is based on mean that they are unethical or are merely following "letter of the law"?
Containing some code is generally seen as okay. Taking a BSD library and merely adding a couple lines of code and releasing it under GPL is generally seen as not okay. That would be an example of the generally accepted ethics of the OS/FS community. You can, of course, do exactly that, but many would see that as being on par with... oh... say... making a deal with Microsoft to protect your distro from patent lawsuits while leaving derivatives liable. It may be legal, but it certainly doesn't fit the whole "the code is shared and everybody can use it equally" ethics common to most Free Software and Open Source licenses. They may handle the details and caveats differently, but the fundamental "share equally" idea is there in pretty much all of them, a core concept that this deal goes against.
To take something that somebody freely gives you and use it in a manner contrary to what is expected is legal and also wrong, no matter if it's taking and then selling soup kitchen food, pawning an engagement ring to fund running off with another guy, or taking money your grandmother gave you to pay for college and running off to Las Vegas with it. All of that said, here's the final and key point I want you (ClosedSource) to consider:
Is it unethical? Drop the legal argument for a moment. You're certainly in the right that it's legal. Ignore the easy question for a moment. Is this move by Novell an unethical one under the "share equally" philosophy of Free Software and Open Source? The legal question is simply boring... the real interesting debate is "does this violate the intent of the people who freely made this for Novell to use and sell?" There's no clear answer there.
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Evan "I certainly have no answer" E.
I agree wholeheartedly. What should have been said is that Novell, by making this deal, is behaving against the ethics of Open Source and Free Software. Microsoft is a perfectly legal company... and has engaged in behavior that many consider highly unethical. Thus many people think poorly of their business dealing. This is a matter of ethics, not a matter of law or rights.
Ethics is part of business. I know I've had the opportunity to screw over my business partner many times in the nine years we've been working together. I'm sure he has as well. We have both behaved as ethically as we possible and we trust each other. The same goes for the companies that we have brokered deals with. We behave in an ethical manner and we receive business because of our reputation. Microsoft has partnered with many companies and subsequently screwed them over. That should be a consideration when dealing with them, and Novell -- as an OS/FS company -- is now dealing with them. This will certainly chill relations with the people who develop the product they sell, and likely some customers. Dealing with unethical people or companies does impart a certain taint to you and your product. That is what is occurring here, not a violation of law.
Just because you have a right to do something does not make it right to do.
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Evan
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Evan
I am not a small child; I want the pointy scissors, the dangerous superglue instead of paste and if I need to spray for bugs, give me something that is poison. I can take the responsibility if I eat it.
The problem has nothing to do with the water being "safe" or not... the problem is people demanding that it be "safe" and that "safe" status enforced through legal action. I'd imagine far more people have died choking on McDonalds food than have been harmed by their hot coffee. I'd bet that more people have died in the drive through, and I'll bet there are more health related issues from their fatty foods than from the temperature of any beverage.
There does not have to be a balance of safety, it just has to be clear what it is. Bug spray is poison, scissors are sharp, coffee is hot. Ignore these things and you will hurt yourself, but the problem isn't the bug spray maker, the office supply store or the restaurant... the problem is the assumption that it is incumbent upon the world to provide a "child safe" environment for the adult population. Put the bug spray in the coffee cup and sell it as coffee, and I'll agree that there's a problem, but that's not what happened. Dangerous things should exist and be sold in the world -- and yes, people will get hurt as a result. That's called adult life.
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Evan
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Evan
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Evan
I specifically said why: because in this discussion, somebody would have jumped in with an appeal that scientists don't know what they are talking about because they are part of some sort of anti-drug conspiracy. As an example: the concept that because marijuana is natural it has to be harmless. This is a common mantra of what I refer to as "woo woo" thinking. I lived in Northern California for a time, and I've learned to quickly toss a point or two in to block off those lines of debate.
You may not be superstitious, I may not be superstitious, but assuming that everybody in a public forum is rational and trusts the scientific process is not logical either. I tossed in a group that is not "The Man" for the people who aren't rational. Particularly when there is quite a bit of wishful thinking and questionable sources regarding the subject, citing multiple unconnected sources is a good idea. "AMA or your local doctor" would have generated a slew of comments about how the medical profession is purely interested in keeping people paying them.
Perhaps we're both cynical, just in different ways. Regardless, we're polite about it. :)
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Evan
It's hard to find a good non-JAMA citation for dependency (i.e., not a scare-monger site run for the "War on Drugs"). JAMA is not online without a login; if you have a decent library or University nearby, I'd use their resources. There is some information, however, in the AMA's report on medical marijuana, which is online:
Depending on the measures and age group studied, 4% to 9% of marijuana users fulfill diagnostic criteria for substance dependence. Although some marijuana users develop dependence, they appear to be less likely to do so than users of alcohol and nicotine, and the abstinence syndrome is less severe.4,188,190 Like other drugs, dependence is more likely to occur in individuals with co-morbid psychiatric conditions.
Note that the article is not anti-marijuana. It dismisses the claims that marijuana is a gateway drug and questions several of the health effects such as it being an immunosuppressant (it may be, but the studies are not conclusive, and many other drugs are immunosuppressive and in common use). 4) Joy JE, Watson S Jr, Benson JA Jr, eds. Marijuana and Medicine. Assessing the Science Base. Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Health, Institute of Medicine. National Academy Press: Washington, DC; 1999188) Hall W, Solowij N. Adverse effects of cannabis. Lancet. 1998;352:1611-1616.
190) Anthony JC, Warner LA, Kessler RC. Comparative epidemiology of dependence on tobacco, alcohol, controlled substances, and inhalants: basic findings from the National Comorbidity Survey. Exp Clin Psychopharmacology. 1994;2:244-268.
That's pretty much as deep into this argument as I'd like to get on Slashdot, but there's plenty there to spend an hour or three digging at a local library if you'd like to know more. Like some other hotly disputed topics (gun control, abortion statistics), Google isn't much use here unless you're simply looking for quotes to support your own preconceptions. Personally, I've read about cannabinoid dependency in reputable journals and am fairly satisfied it exists and isn't a major problem, even among users. Some of the receptors have been identified; it's quite possible there will be withdrawl medications, although dependency is fairly rare even in active users (as I've stated several times) so there's the question as to how useful a withdrawl drug would be. A much more likely outcome of the research will be a class of medications that use the cannabinoid receptors to produce beneficial effects without the adverse side effects or dosing issues related to marijuana use.
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Evan
In fact, the specific reason I cited both was because had I cited the AMA only, somebody would have ranted against the scientists as being part of the medical-industrial complex that denies our connection to nature or some such crap. Interesting how you just pick the one you disagree with, apparantly just to be disagreeable. I hand you both practical and spiritual *and* science and medical based sources and you choose the one you disagree with and ignore that I suggested the other as well.
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Evan "Married to a quantum chemist, and she's not part of any religion or conspiracy, nor are her fellow researchers".
I seem to be reliving history due to having failed to learn it. Oops. :)
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Evan "Too much Roman study"
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Evan "Those who have failed to learn history..."
Few people get addicted, but those that do face serious problems going off and do suffer all the difficult withdrawl symptoms. Personally, I see it as not addictive enough to warrant legal issues: there are other legal substances with addictive properties that tend to cause addiction much faster (tobacco) or have harsher recovery issues (alcohol). Plus it has never been shown to cause lung cancer, which kicks it ahead of tobacco in my eyes (emphysema and some other diseases are still an issue).
Hit some Al-Anon or NA meetings if you question any of this. They are quite friendly and very very frank, employing neither the scare tactics of the "drugs are sin" crowd or the dismissiveness of the "drugs are safe" crowd. Or if you doubt them, read the AMA guidelines and how the diagnostic criteria of addiction and related issues (like obsessive use and dependency) are laid out, although it's been changed recently due to the genetic basis for addiction being more precisely identified.
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Evan
Kind of like how I pictured Steve Mann going down in a supersoaker fight.
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Evan
This is like an Ask Slashdot "How do I format a hard drive?". Yes, it's something that many people don't know how to do, but it's also not hard to find the information how, and it is quite common. Same goes for the various lost wax casting techniques using resin, metal or other materials... heck, the full instructions are usually on the boxes of materials that you can pick up at any crafts or jewelry supply store.
I will support you in a slightly different vein... there was the followup question looking for other neat costume ideas. kfg could have made his comment about how the ring wasn't really special and then mentioned something neat... like using textured hard floor mats for trucks as part of costume armor (something I've done but very rarely seen done elsewhere).
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Evan
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Evan "old enough story to get a bit offtopic, I think"
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Evan