After reading a few paragraphs of this uninspired, poorly spoken testimony by Jack Valentini, I've come to the obvious conclusion: (1) He's racist or at least a demagogue; (2) He's a lying bastard; (3) He's incredibly fucking dumb; (4) He's a short sighted man; (5) Because of the above, we have no more reason to consider his paranoia about "infringement" today than we did back then.
(1) He's a racist/demagogue. Its obvious from this that the man is racist. His remarks regarding the Japanese come in the category of "they're fucking us over" paranoia. If he's not a racist, he's at least a demagogue, willing to rile up people's sentiments to fulfill his ambitions. In other words, he's fine with the fact that his testimony leaves people with racist impressions, or that it leaves them irrationally stereotyping.
(2) He's a lying bastard. This is an obvious point, as video tapes have no ruining the movie industry; in fact, they've made it stronger. Why should we trust what he says now? Its motivated by the same paranoia as was what he said back then?
(3) He's incredibly fucking dumb. Well, if he's not (2) a lying bastard, he's (3) incredibly fucking dumb. If he sincerely believed that video's would ruin his industry, he's obviously fucking dumb. The past 20 years have proven that. So, why should we value the paranoid predictions of a fucking idiot? He's sort of like those religious idiots who were claiming apocalypse was coming at the millenium, 2000. Then it didn't come. So they said, "oh wait, the millenium's really 2001 because there was no year 0". Well, apocalypse didn't come then either. Now, they're backpeddling. See the parallels between them and Valentini? He predicted doom once, and it didn't come. He's predicted and predicting doom now, and it still isn't coming.
(4) & (5): He's an incredibly short-sighted man, and we shouldn't trust his paranoid prophecies any more now than should we have back them. These points follow as obvious consequences of the previous points.
Lets see, comparing OSS/FSS and proprietary ware. Lets say you have 1,000 computers. MS WinXP Pro costs 300 dollars. But businesses get special "deals". So lets say it costs 10 dollars for a business; that amounts to 10,000 dollars for all 1,000 computers. For that $10,000 dollars, you get an operating system that's: (1) Plaqued with security issues; (2) Has stability problems; (3) Is bloated and slow, and loaded with bloatware; (4) Violates your privacy; (5) Includes DRM technology. In addition, you have to spend resources keeping track of your proof of purchase. The icing on the cake is that you get the priviledge of panicking over a BSA investigation. When a BSA investigation comes, you get the priviledge of paying lawyers bills, losing money from bad press (2) the other usability advantages such as sticky menus; (3) stability advantages; (4) no risk of BSA; (5) it doesn't take 15 minutes to add a simple feature like hyphenation, as it does with MS Office. The simple fact is, that OpenOffice can do almost anything MS Office can do; the features MS Office has that OpenOffice doesn't are useless or annoying ones, like automatic formatting or the stupid M&M help thing.
One final note, idiot, if a company does use OpenOffice and notices deficiencies in it, or that it doesn't exactly meet their needs, they can HIRE programmers to customize it, as its FSS software. Unlike in the case of MS Office. If there's something in MS Office hte company doesn't like, its tough shit. The amount of money it costs a company to hire someone to tailor it will probably not be more than they would've spend had they bought an MS product.
"Opportunity cost" jobs that were lost? In other words, its theoretical and the industry can shove any bullshit numbers they want down our throats, because its all based on unprovable assumptions and conclusions.
I never said that only programmer's jobs matter. Didn't hooked on puh-honix work for you? My point was simply that they are being mis-representive. They are trying to imply that it has cost 100,000 programmers their jobs. Firstly, if it has had an effect, it has been more on the beurocracy than the programmers. When software companies are looking to fire people, they don't fire programmers first. Secondly, the statement itself is a complete distortion. If you believe their hodge-podge methods of estimating "hundreds of thousands", then it is in jobs that they couldn't give people: not because of firings.
Again, next time think before you speak. It can save you from banging your head in the wall, trying to defend statements which were obviously not well thought.
By the way, next time you have something incredibly stupid to say, you might not want to be an ass in the way you say it. It might save you from such a harsh correction.
(1) They lie. Or at least mis-represent. 57% of people admit to downloading software they haven't paid for. So what? Whether the idiots at the BSA realize it or not, non-costware is much more popular among the people than is costware. Shareware, Freeware, Adware, OSS, and FS software are much much much more popular than costware; not only because they're free (or usually free in the case of OSS / FS), but also because they're just better. With OpenOffice, you get a completely functional presentation program (Impress) that can edit power-point files: for free. MS PowerPoint ALONE costs 300 dollars. Lets say that OpenOffice's Impress costed 1 dollar. Is MS PowerPoint really 300 times better than OpenOffice Impress? No, that's laughable; in fact, some claim that Impress is superior. So, in short, yes 57% of people probably have downloaded software from the internet without paying; its probably more like 100%, just the other 43% were too stupid to understand the question, or understand that at one point they probably DID download software without paying for it.
(2) Piracy costs "hundreds of thousands of jobs a year". LOL. Please, that is pure bullshit. 100,000 people in the US software industry were fired last year? Oh, sure, if you include janitors and other people that "work for software companies" but have nothing to do with software, then maybe 100,000 people were fired. Maybe. But come on, get real. 100,000 programmers were not fired last year. Lying bastards.
(3) On MIT tracking copies of pirated software. Traitors. Clearly sellouts for academics, siding with the powerful intellectual property industry against the academics who realize the importance of balance. As for them knowing "you" downloaded a song, bullshit. I'm sorry, but there's no way in hell they can track the activities of all the file-sharerers even in the US alone. Furthermore, let them prove it. All they have is digital records, all of which can be made up and faked. Finally, even if they convince some idiotic judge that you in fact downloaded the latest S. Twain song w/o paying for it, so what? Firstly, its not a criminal offense. Secondly, pay the $19 dollars that that CD albulm costs; big deal. You'll make up for it by all the stuff they didn't catch.
So, let me get this straight, not only is Lucas destroying the Star Wars legacy by the laughable Ep I and II (though Ep III may be better if he doesn't fuck up Darth Vader), but now, he's also going to destroy the original Star Wars by "redoing it"? This is turning into a more shameless franchise than Jaws was. And you don't see Spielbeg, now, more than a decade later, going back and trying to squeeze more money out of Jaws, do you? No. He certainly could justify it -- after all, modern special effects could make it look realistic by today's standards. But, because he has some class, he's chosen not to fuck with a good thing.
Lucas, however, displays no such class.
Star Wars IV - VI were brilliant, great movies. But lets face it, Lucas was a 3-hit wonder. What other movies has Lucas made that are worth watching? Certainly not Star Wars I or II.
Are you really sure you're 18? Because the non-sense and poor grammar in that response seemed more appropriate of an 8-year old.
To be quite frank, certain things are below certain age groups. Period. There are a number of things which adults simply don't do any more because they have grown up; for example, playing with legos or those GI soldier kits. People who grow up stop doing these things. Perhaps you haven't grown up yet -- as is obvious from your post -- but for a moment try to think like your actually a mature person (amazing concept).
The simplistic things which once amused adults, they now find idiotic and boring. Playing with a slinky just isn't a way for me to pass the afternoon. Maybe it is for you. While your at it, you can also tune in your TV to "Power Rangers" or "Transformers". And when you go out to eat at a restaurant with friends, make sure to say, "my daddy always says," instead of "my father said". Hey, these things are still normal for some adults to do, right? Never mind the fact that such adults usually have a form of mental retardation.
But, hey, I'm sure your a real fan. Maybe you were even one of the jobless bums waiting in line for 4 months to be the first to watch the new Star Wars movie. Don't have a job, but no matter: "The Force is With You".
As for "all the 30 year old dumbasses out there in Vader Costumes," can you say "mentally challenged"? You want to join that group, fine.
PS: I don't watch or refuse to watch movies because they're "cool" or "uncool". I watch or refuse to watch movies because they're excellent or poor, respectively. Spidey & Star Wars II are cool movies. As for quality, they rank on par with Jurassic Park 3 and Jaws 3 or 4: total and completely worthless crap.
First, let me say, I'm not a kid. I'm 21. Which is precisely why I'm not going to now -- nor ever -- see this stupid Spiderman film. Even when I was a kid, I didn't like Spiderman comics or TV-series.
Spiderman is, imo, from what I've seen, a purely for kids movie. Unlike the original Star Wars IV - VI, which could be enjoyed by kids who just wanted a fun movie, and which was serious enough that adults wouldn't feel like idiots watching it. There are some things which are just too stupid, too childish, for an adult to even watch by him or herself. Spiderman is one of those things. Congratulations to the creators of Spiderman for making a movie targetted to children which made them an awful awful lotta money. I'm sure that if they'd released a 3D animated movie of Transformers it'd do just as well. Big deal.
What really gets me is that some people are actually trying to say this is "a classic", or "a great movie". As of simply because its sold a lot, it deserves to be compared with great movies such as the original Star Wars series, Jurassic Park, Jaws, Titanic, and so on and so forth. Lets get one thing straight: "Spidey" isn't in that class of movies. There's nothing brilliant about it, as there was in Jaws. There's no revolution in special effects, as was done in Jurassic Park.
So, please, people lets not do real movies a disservice by saying Spiderman is anything all that great. It's a for-kids movie that sold alot. Big deal.
On the other hand, on to Star Wars. Whereas Spidey can't be classified as a great movie because it simply lacks the substance or revolutionary elements, these new Star Wars movies can't be classified as great because they're targetted specifically at Star-Wars nerds. Outside of Star-Wars nerds, no one's really interested in Darth Vaders' child-hood, ok? I happen to really like Star Wars, but I'm still not interested in Anakin Skywalker. I'll be more than interested to see how the evil Emperor turns him into Darth Vader in Ep 3., but that's yet to come. Hopefully, Lucas won't screw up Darth Vader, give him some dumb voice, make him the wrong height, or some nonsense like that.
The simple fact is, as is said earlier, Lucas tries to take it too serious. That would be OK, if we could actually believe it should be serious. With the original Star Wars, you could take it as just fun, but it was also dead serious; Darth Vader was dead serious. But the new Star Wars eps, with Darth Maul? Come on, that guy looked like some poor rip off of a painting of a demon. Try to be a little more creative than red makeup and horns, Lucas. Gee, red make-up and horns? That might be original if not for the THOUSANDS of Christian zealots who've already used that image as the anti-christ for their religion.
Part of it isn't Lucas' fault. I mean, no matter what he does, no Darth Sith he can come up with is going to in any way be able to hold a candle to Darth Vader. But he could've done better than Darth Maul. Even the name was lame.
And another thing, despite MORE THAN A DECADE of special effects but Jaws 2, 3, 4? All pathetic jokes. Jurassic Park 1, great in every way. Jurassic Park 2 was a fun action film, not too much plot other than hunters v. tree-huggers...but still really fun to watch. Jurassic Park 3? Boring. Plot in it was lame, action was lame; as I've said on epinions.com, Jurassic Park 3 tried to be everything that Jurassic Park 1 was, and failed in every possible conceivable way.
I really see parallels between Jurassic Park 3 and Jaws 3/4 and Star Wars I/II. Just a lame money-grab, nothing new to add to the saga. The standard for doing a sequel should be in light of the legacy: does the sequel enhance or diminish the legacy? I think that these new Star Wars I/II movies do nothing to enhance the Star Wars legacy, and in fact diminish it by diluting the real Star Wars movies (IV, V, and VI) with money-grabbing rubbish.
If your a real Star Wars fan, and you really want to see Star Wars, then pop in your IV, V, and VI tapes. You get to watch those for free, and you won't be left with the bad taste in your mouth.
Star Wars III is My Last Hope for Lucas to redeem himself. Hopefully, when Lucas can have a Star Wars movie based around turning Anakin Skywalker into the half-machine Darth Vader, that will be something worth seeing.
The laws should stay as they are. Someone should be penalized based on how much profit they made from pirating, not the "retail price" some company sets their software at. Pirated software, unlike legal proprietary software, is subject to market pressures. That CD is ONLY worth $10.
Of course, this would be bad news for the GPL; but people can modify the GPL in making their software, and hopefully we can lobby RMS to modify it a little. If you're worried about MS ripping off your GPL'ed code, include a clause in it like this:
"Any individual or organization who violates this license is liable for up to $1,000,000 dollars or up to half their net worth, whiever is larger. The licenser may choose to allow this to pass"
Libel laws, as currently written, are nothing more than a tool used by the powerful to silence those less powerful. They are completely and utterly without merit. Want proof? When was the last time a libel suit was filed against Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton? These are individuals who certainly knowingly engage in destroying people's reputations for political gain. The reason lawsuits aren't filed against them is because they're rich, and the defendants are (relatively) poor.
Libel laws should be completely redrafted, as should all civil law. For one thing, we should receive the SAME protections under civil law as we receive under criminal law. The plaintiff should have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. The logic behind why proof beyond a reasonable doubt is required for a criminal case, but not a civil one...is ludicrous. Someone losing millions of dollars is just as severe as them being sent to jail for years.
But as for libel laws in particular, it should have to be proven that the person knowingly and maliciously destroyed a (wo)man's reputation, when the defendant knew that (wo)man hadn't done what they allege.
As for this particular case, the idea that a court in one state has jurisdiction over a man in another who's never even visited that state is absurd. Certainly, even if a judgement is made, there's no way the court can exact the payment of the verdict, as it has no authority to order the impoundment of finances in another state.
Certainly, no person/organization in the US should ever be held liable for violating the IP/libel laws in another nation. US courts should be very clear that they will NOT enforce any decisions made by non-US courts within the US. I also think that its ludacrous that people in one state should be held liable according to the laws of another. Someone in CA should not have to worry about libel laws in FL. If I publish a newspaper here in NY, I shouldn't have to worry about the libel laws in FL; that should certainly be the same for if I publish it on the Internet. Otherwise, publishing something on the internet makes a US citizen liable to the laws of every state in the nation: that's fucking absurd.
I have noted this every time someone talks about shortening copyright terms, the same question and concern: "What will this do to the GPL? Companies will now be able to exploit GPL'ed code in only X years." This is a stupid argument, namely because proprietary code would be public domain in X years, which would more than counter the GPL'ed code being public domain in X years. The GPL was made as a weapon against typical copyright. Its a way to live with current copyright laws while they exist. Also, any laws shortening copyright periods could have specific exceptions for GPL'ed, LGPL'ed, BSD'd, and other open-sourced or free as in freedom licenses.
Here's my proposal for copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, and other terms. Let me briefly justify it by saying that in terms of "shelf life" music and software on average have very short periods of popularity. I know some idiot is going to respond to this saying that "people still listen to Beethoven" and that "basic UNIX code has been around forever," so let me qualify that by saying that the vast vast majority of software and music is obsolete in a few years. In software, this is especially true for the vast majority of games; older games like (i.e., Tomb Raider I) may still be played, but they're hardly selling points for their companies (i.e., Eidos). Same thing with most music. There are always a few exceptions; but even in the cases of exceptions -- i.e., music by Madonna -- the revenues from 5 year old albums is very miniscule compared to that from albums just recently released. As for movies, they have a longer shelf life. Books and artistic works (i.e., paintings) probably have the longest "life-span". On to patents; most inventors recover the cost of their investment on patents in much less time than 20 years, so I propose scaling this protection back as well. Here's my specific proposals:
I. Copyrights.
As a general preface, aside from the duration changes which will be mentioned, copyrights must also be reformed such as to eliminate copyright-abuses. For example, assinite terms of the EULA should not be protected by the laws. Furthermore, copyrights should be modified such that equal licensing terms are mandated. Also, any copyrighted work coupled with DRM or other technologies which in any way hinder fair use will be protected; in other words, copyright owners must by law ensure fair use priviledges to their customers (as is the law in Russia). On a similar vein, when the duration of a work expires, the owner must make make available any information pertinent to that work so as to make it public domain (i.e., the source code); this is ensured by mandating that copyright owners submit their source code to the government when registering copyrights. Furthermore, no technologies which further consumers' fair use rights may be hindered. This is hardly a comprehensive list of necessary reforms.
A. Software.
I propose initial terms of copyright protection for software of 5 years. At the end of the term, one extension of 5 years may be granted if sales are at 50% of the maximum; an extension of 4 years, if sales are at 40% of the maximum; etc. In short, the extension will be determined as follows: # years extension = (% maximum) / 10, up to a 5 year extension maximum. (5yrs - 10yrs max). Open sourced software of free as in freedom software (as defined by opensource.org and fsf.org, respectively) will be protected for 75 years.
B. Music.
Initial term of 10 years. At the end of that term, an extension can be granted according to the following formula: # years extension = (% maximum) / 10, up to a 5 year extension maximum; another, final, extension at the end of that term may be granted according tot he same formula. (10yrs - 20yrs max). Any music distributed under an free as in freedom license has a protection of 80 years.
C. Movies.
Initial term of 15 years. Three 5 year extensions may be granted according to the formula: # years extension = (% maximum) / 10, up to a 5 year extension maximum for each separate extension. (15yrs - 30yrs max). Any movies distributed under a free as in freedom license have a protection of 85 years.
D. Books.
Initial term of 20 years. Four 5 year extensions may be granted according to the formula: # years extension = (% maximum) / 10, up to a 5 yar extension maximum for each separate extension. (20yrs - 40yrs max). Any books distributed under the a free as in freedom license have a protection of 90 years.
E. Artistic works.
Initial term of 25 years. Five 5 year extensions may be granted according to the formula: # years extension = (% maximum) / 10, up to a 5 yar extension maximum for each separate extension. (25yrs - 50yrs max). Any artistic works distributed under a free as in freedom license have a protection of 95 years.
II. Patents
As a general preface, aside from the duration changes which will be mentioned, patents must also be reformed such that no patent is granted where prior art is present. Furthermore, to aid in this goal, all pending patents must be opened up so that the public can look for cases of prior art. This is largely intended to put an end to the shameless cases of biopiracy, where Indigenous people's knowledge is being plundered by greedy corporations, which then make Indigenous peoples pay for the medicines they themselves created. Furthermore, patents should be reformed such that equal terms licensing is required. Independent or nearly independent co-discovery of the same thing will be recognized; Newton and Leibnez both invented Calculus independently. One may have invented it slightly before the other, but that hardly means that only one should be recognized. In such modern-day cases of independent co-discovery, both inventors will be entitled to rights. Finally, full and complete disclosure of the relevant materials/procedures (i.e., source code, algorithms) to the public will be required. This is hardly comprehensive list of ways in which current patent laws need to be modified to stamp out corrupted, poor elements of patent law.
A. Business.
Patents on business practices, models, or techniques (i.e., Amazon's 1-click or whatever its called) will be abolished. Discovering a superior way to do business is incentive enough.
B. Software.
Patents on software techniques (i.e., algorithms) will be abolished. Copyrights should be sufficient to cover any software. Even Bill Gates, a IP-monger, has said that patent laws threaten software innovation, and that had what is patentable now been patentable 20 years ago, the modern software era would have never come about (refer to Lawrence Lessig's "The Future of Ideas).
C. Medicines and other medical treatments.
Medicines and medical treatments will be covered for an initial term of 5 years; one 5 year extension may be granted according to the formula: # years extension = (% maximum) / 10, up to a 5 year extension maximum. Furthermore, medicines for life-threatening conditions (i.e., AIDS, cancer) or otherwise severe conditions (hint: a cold doesn't count) must be provided at the cost of production to anyone too poor to afford them at market price; to discourage fraud, anyone found to be trying to defaud the companies will be forced by a court to pay at least 5 times market price afterwards. I have singled out medicines for special treatment because medicines are special in that they save lives and that most medicines are obsolete and useless very quickly (any anti-AIDS drugs quickly become useless), so it does not benefit the public at all for them to be in the public domain after 20 years. In 20 years, any current HIV-drug will be completely useless; thus, the public gets short-changed in such deals. Furthermore, any civilized society realizes that economic concerns take a backseat to saving lives.
D. Other invensions.
Other inventions will be covered by an initial term of 10 years; one extension may be granted according to the following formula: # years extension = (% maximum) / 10, for up to a maximum of 10 years.
III. Trade Secrets.
Trade secrets will be abolished. If a company wants to keep a secret, that should be their obligation and responsibility; courts should not be helping them to do so by silencing anyone who "discovers their secret". Aside from that, trade secrets are a potential danger to the public, since we know not what they are. We live in a democracy, and the idea of the government protecting corporate secrets is the anti-thesis to an open, free society.
IV. Trademarks.
I do not think that current durations on trademarks should be altered. Trademarks in fact help the public by allowing us to easily distinguish between different kinds of products. What should be modified is the scope of trademark laws. Trademarks should apply very specifically to their field. Furthermore, trademarks should have to be on an original phrase; i.e., trademarking "Windows" is not allowed. There are also numerous examples where trademark owners try to restrict language outside of their specific field. For example, Intel Inside and Yoga Inside; Coke suing a book-dealer for quoting praise of a book which said "its the real thing"; and so on and so forth. None of that non-sense should be allowed. Trademarks in the software industry should not cross over into other industries, and vica versa. Ideally, trademarks should be new words or new phrases, never-before-said; i.e., Intelliside should be preferable to Intel Inside. However, if that's not done, at the very least, the trademarks should only be enforced specifically within an industry. In the granting of trademarks, more scrutiny should be given to one's which are not new words or phrases, never-before-said. The idea is to prevent corporations and religions from carving up the English language amongst themselves.
V. Scientology
As one final note, I would like to say that something needs to be done about Scientology and copyright laws, trademark laws, and possibly patent laws. It should not be possible for Scientology -- or any other half-baked religion -- to use IP laws as a way to beat their members into submission, silence critis, and other such nonsense. In short, to protect freedom of speech and freedom of religion, intellectual property laws must not apply to religion. If something is to qualify as a religion, its books, so to speak, must be completely open, public domain. No IP laws should be used to silence parody, criticism, review, or fair-use: any such attempt to use IP laws to silence parody, criticism, review, or fair-use will be deemed as an abuse of that copyright, patent, or trade-secret, and will result in losing the rights to that particular piece. Repeated attempts to abuse IP-"rights" on the part of corporations or organizations will result in them losing all of their IP-"rights".
VI. Final Notes.
As a final note, I should say that my system has the advantage of rewarding extended terms based on how well something is selling. There is obviously little point in offering a long extension for a work which is only selling at 0.01% of maximum volume. Perhaps using the maximum sales as a reference point is a little bit too much; perhaps the average sale over the initial term should be used, or the midpoint between the max and the average. However, the point remains the same: that this system rewards extensions in proportion to how well something is selling. This neutralizes criticism from people who say, "oh, but there's some works who sell well for a long time". Any suggestions on other ways to stamp out abuse of the IP-system would be welcome.
Audiogalaxy, KazaaLite, aren't great compared to P2P Limewire. LimeWire and other true P2P (completely decentralized) software can't be regulated or banned. Not only that, but its getting better in terms of speed and reliability; also, its getting more users, and LimeWire's usually the place I go to find rare songs, like "Now You Suck," by the Yeastie Girls.
I still use KazaaLite in tandem with LimeWire, but LimeWire is becoming more and more my primary option. Not to mention, its RMS-friendly, since it uses the GNU GPL.
That of course doesn't justify the RIAA/MPAA's actions. Centralized services for distribution should not be held responsible for the content being distributed, not any more than ISP's should have to micro-monitor their users. File-sharing services can be used for many many purposes, most of which have nothing to do with sharing copyrighted works. Since the pattern seems to be like Wack-a-mole -- where RIAA/MPAA sue one file-sharing service, then another pops up -- perhaps eventually we'll get a SANE ruling from a judge who isn't paid for and owned by big money.
The RIAA has a point, but what they're really mad about is that they want more power to make and break songs. The RIAA has the power to make and break songs. So does Clear Channel. So the reason the RIAA's pissed off is because another organization can break a song that they wanted to make, or make a song they wanted to break. That's all they're upset about. Don't fool yourself into thinking they actually give a damn about artists. Also, this is a tactical move on the part of the RIAA to try to get some good press, after getting so much bad press over their previous wrong-doings.
That said, politics does make strange issues. For this particular one, the RIAA happens to be right. No sense in refusing help from a powerful ally; just so long as you remember this is like WWII, in the RIAA is like Stalin. The enemy of our enemy is only our friend in that particular case, and only so long as our enemy is a threat.
In fighting against Clear Channel, the RIAA may be a useful ally. However, they will not be an ally in building a new world order afterwards. They will simply want to replace Clear Channel with an organization they control.
What is really needed is what Lawrence Lessig proposed -- free airwaves. This is now possible due to current technologies. Free does not necessarily mean unregulated, as Lessig says. The basic idea behind this is that people wanting to use the airwaves are dynamically assigned a frequency upon request. Each person would have some identifier which would help radio-goers find him, no matter what frequency he was on.
This is very much possible with upcoming technology. We should start moving towards this ideal of free airwaves -- the airwaves need to be revolutionized to be like then net, where everyone has an opportunity to put something on them. Perhaps we can start out by making "half" of the radio-frequencies "free" in such a manner.
Destroying what little democracy there is -- that the net's users can vote -- is not a reform of any kind. It is a power grab. They don't want to be accountable to the public which they are controlling.
What really needs to happen is that the ICANN should be completely eliminated. Every decision about assigning IP addresses to corresponding web addresses should be democratically made by the net-community. That is, every issue should be voted on by the net. The internet makes it possible to have a true democracy as did the Greeks. We should go in that direction.
That's why I, and you, should call these people music-nazis or movie-nazis. They are a dangerous group of extremists: just as dangerous to the public as the KKK, Scientologists, and NAMBLA.
Hasn't anyone else noticed that the RIAA and MPAA websites look like front-ends for the entry into "the dark side of the force"? At least their honest about it, unlike the priests: black evil souls should wear black clothes, and have black web pages.
In other news, a public statement was released by the supreme asshole, the originator of all internet ads, the fuck who schemed up banner ads, pop-unders, pop-ups, screen-take-overs, home-page-stealers, link-stealers. He stated that he was claiming patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets on all of these "brilliant" "great" ideas which have so promoted progress in the Useful Arts and Sciences, and now will be charging a million dollars for each instance of their use.
He also said that if he found out anyone was using these techniques without paying him royalties, not only would he sue them, but he would also send them fifteen thousand SPAMs, another thing he's claiming patents, copyrigths, trademarks, and trade secrets on.
"When you think about it, aren't pop-unders better than pop-overs?"
No, you stupid fuck, pop-unders aren't better than pop-ups; in fact, quite the opposite. With pop-ups, at least we know they are there and can quickly close them, preventing them from opening more windows or using more of our resources. Pop-unders may go unnoticed, thus stealing our resources, while simultaneously opening up more pop-unders, thus stealing more of our resources, until the entire system comes to a screeching halt trying to deal with twenty-thousand pop-unders.
Lets stop all the whoopla about Warez. Be realistic -- it doesn't cost businesses a thing. Most people who d/l Warez wouldn't have paid the steep price for the program anyways, so companies lose no money. They're just using it as an excuse to keep prices arbitrarily high. The average person who d/l's a pirated version of PowerPoint would never fork over the absurd $300 that MS is demanding for Power Point. Come on, this is pure bullshit. Like they actually produce any REAL updates anyways. Powerpoint today is basically the same as it was in '97. I'm not willing to pay more than 50 bucks for great games -- and these are pieces of software which actually involved real work to make, which actually did evolve, and which cost a lot of money to make. If you tell me it cost Outrage a lot of money to make Descent 3, I'll buy into that argument. If you tell me it cost MS a lot of money to upgrade PowerPoint 2000 to PowerPoint XP, I say that's a load of fucking bullshit.
As for people searching for Warez via search engines, that's mostly useless. Even using cross referencing, its difficult to get a good Warez page. 99% of all "warez" pages are really fronts for pop-up porno operations. When it comes to Warez, you really need to "be in" to be able to access it.
If someone breaks into my computer from off-site and uses it for some purpose, whether it harms the computer or not, they should have to pay me money. Furthermore, this is illegal: breaking and entering. I don't want anyone using my computer without my persmission -- irrelevant of the reason, and irrelevant of the effect it has on my computer.
However, Intel's case is decidedly different. For one thing, the e-mails are their *employees* e-mail addresses. Its up to the employees to decide whether or not they want to receive them, not Intel. Furthermore, if Intel's really serious about this, they'd set their servers not to accept any e-mails from the e-mail address of their former employee.
Irrelevant of such, it comes down to a question of who's decision is it? Intel or their employees'? Intel does own the server and computers; however, their employees have certain rights despite such. If it is Intel's right to decide whether or not they want to accept the e-mail, they should be able to call for restraints against their former employee, the same way we could demand a spammer stop sending us e-mail, and have legal force. If we want to be able to legally prevent someone from sending us SPAM (or any other unsolicited or unwanted e-mail) so should Intel.
All these new technology laws out there (except anti-SPAM laws) suck, but do they really have any statistical impact?
The rulings against Napster hasn't put a dent in file-sharing. No legal actions ever will, especially now with completely decentralized services, like LimeWire, which are open-sourced and who's development can never be stopped, due to it being open-sourced.
The ruling against DeCSS hasn't put a dent in its distribution or use.
Quite frankly, courts or government's don't have the power to regulate the internet. For one thing, there's jurisdiction issues: simply distribute from Russia, for example. For another, they can't necessarily hold anyone accountable for developing such (say Open-DVD players or file-sharing) software, because people can collaborate and contribute anonymously, from public computers, using a "handle".
Of course, this is a threat to open (that is, non-anonymous) development of OSS of FS, but big deal. If developers are really that eager for recognition, they can move to a country with no prohibitions on the software and openly develop there.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't fight against these laws. In fact, its a good reason to advocate not passing these laws: because they just don't work.
Anyone who waits in line to see Star Wars 2 for months is a Loser with a capital L. Get a life. I like Star Wars also, but I'm not going to camp outside Regal Cinema to be the first one in. The movie will be just as good in two weeks, when its less crowded. What would really really be funny is if one of these losers got to the front of the line after waiting 3 months and realized (s)he'd forgotten his or her wallot. LOL. Now that would be funny. Anyone who waits in line 3 months is probably a jobless bum. But, hey, "The force is with them," right?
On a sidenote, what really amazes me is how a stupid comic-book based movie like Spiderman can actually pull in more the first weekend than real good movies like Jaws, Jurassic Park, Titanic, Star Wars (IV - VI), or the Indianna Jones trilogy.
"What laws has PETA broken? Or, do they deserve to die slowly, simply because you disagree with them personally? That is inhumane...The fact you equate an animal rights group, the music industry, the christian coalition with child molesters and rapists makes you just as bad as the groups you despise."
Actually, anyone who supports the death penalty supports executing people they disagree with personally. Rapists and murderers, for example, can be executed in Texas. They happen to have this view that rape and murder is OK; so we execute them. Ok, not exactly so -- they happen to have this view that rape and murder is OK, and they act on it; so we execute them.
Yes, I do group PETA, CC, MPAA, RIAA, and most politicians with rapists, murderers, and child-molesters. Because they all violate our rights.
PETA (~Al kaida). These are the people that think that animals are more important than humans, and who'd have farmers denied much needed water, to protect some freaking sucker fish. They also blow up buildings which are the sites of scientific research, where animals were being used. Terrorists.
CC (~NAMBLA). I believe the CC already has supported the murder of pro-choice advocates. They may have condemned the Neuremburg files site publicly, but they certainly had a hand in it. Also, there's the Christian-affiliated site which showed a homosexual boy burning, and said he died as punishment for being gay. But that's not directly affiliated w/ the CC. What the CC advocates is forcing women to give birth. In my book, that's as bad as what's done in China -- forcing women to have abortions. Forcing a woman to give birth, or to have an abortion, is an act analagous to rape. This puts the CC on par with NAMBLA (NAMBLA supports raping little children, CC supports raping women by forcing them to give birth).
The music/movie industry. I'm not talking about the entire music/movie industry here, only the people who don't make music or movies (i.e., the Valentini's or Rosen's). Perhaps no single act of theirs is equitable to rape, murder, or child molestment. But over the period of their careers, they screw us out of constitutional rights, which is the same thing rapists/murderers do. The right to life really isn't too great without the right to free speech and privacy, and other "higher rights".
Politicians. Same story as RIAA/MPAA above. Over their careers they violate many rights, and make decisions that unjustifiably cause people's deaths (refer to Janet Reno and Waco).
You have a good point about wrongful conviction, which can, however, be addressed by raising the bar for a death penalty -- namely, rock-hard evidence, such as DNA and expert testimony on vaginal tearings, would be required for the death penalty. Also, anyone currently in jail should be able to have a DNA test freely done, if they want to prove that they are innocent. If the test show they're guilty, however, the cost of the test is burdened by them.
Also, another thing I support: any prosecutor who knowingly prosecutes and convicts and innocent person should, upon being found out, have to serve a punishment equaling that the person he convicted served.
That's the practical side of things. On to theory. "People should not kill people". Bleeding-heart nonsense, imo. This class of criminals I'm talking about -- murderers, rapists, child-molesters, sexual-assaulters -- are a permanent danger to society, and need to be neutralized. I don't believe in an eye for an eye. I believe the only way to completely neutralize these dangerous threats to society -- and especially to their victims -- is to execute them. Try to look at it from the victims point of view -- they aren't safe from these people until they're executed.
As for the "honor system" you mention, where a raped-daughter's father kills the rapist because of honor, then the rapists father kills someone else because of honor, etc, this type of "honor" system doesn't exist in the US. Such spirals of death would not occur.
Furthermore, the reason fathers -- and mother's -- kill a person who rapes their child is not because of honor. Its because that's the only way to ensure they're children are safe from them. But, since you think this is "barbaric" perhaps you'd like to put the parent in jail for life, deprive the child of their loving father or mother, and cause further trauma in the child's life? What do you think should be the punishment for such a person? Do you really think we should put parents in jail for doing what comes naturally to parents, protecting their children from dangerous individuals?
Being a former Republican, I know this. Why don't we look at this so-called bill before we crucify Sen. Trent Lott...also, for preliminary analysis, I think the bill is crap because that fuck Sen. Hollings supports it: the same person who sponsored the SSSCA. I've converted to a moderate libertarian, mainly because of the Christian Right Wing and the Pro-Business-no-matter-what wings in the Republican party, which are two of the three wings in the Repblican party. The other wing -- the one I like -- is the wing that's main focus is crime, and says if someone kills, rapes, or molests, he should be fried (i.e., George W. Bush, referred to as the executioner by Jay Leno).
Anyways, I'm no longer a Republican b/c I disagree with them on a number of important issues: abortion and gay-rights being the most important. I also think democrats are assinite on this issue; the "hate-crimes" bullshit supported by Democrats is crap: Murder (not including vengence murders for raped daughters) should be punished by death, no matter what. Same thing with rape, child molestation, torture, wife-beating, and in my opinion, any other violent crime. Perhaps even an impalement or two for the serial killer/rapists...in Translyvania, when Vlad Dracula ruled, he impaled all criminals; needless to say, there wasn't much crime during his reign. I also think Democrats are full of shit on racism issues: if I own a private company, and the public owns no stock in it, I should be allowed to have whatever assinite hiring/firing/customer practices I choose. If I have assinite practices, people will protest, and I'll go out of business.
The "Pro-Life" wackos in the Republican party freak me out. Especially these fucks who say, "Parents should have to consent before their child has an abortion". This parent's rights crap. Parents rights means that the parents have the right to use corporal punishment on their children, but teacher's don't (and if they do, the parents will rip off their balls and skull fuck them). Parents rights means that parents have the right to check to make sure their kids aren't wearing thongs, but that perverted sick fuck Vice Principle's of schools like this bitch Rita Wilson don't. Parents rights, however, does not mean the poarent has the right to deny their child basic human rights. Forcing a person to give birth is cruel and inhumane, especially a teenager, who'll probably have to have a C-section. Put another way -- and here's something these brainless Pro-Life fucks can understand -- If you think its a parents right to force their child to give birth, then you must also think its a parent's right to force their child to have an abortion. Doesn't seem right, does it?
On taxes, I tend to agree with Republican's -- I work hard for my money, and government fucks don't deserve it. Neither do these poor fucks who are "in need", or "the children". What did some poor person ever do to deserve my money? The bum will probably spend it on drugs anyways. The same losers we pay welfare to are also probably the people that use that welfare check to wait in line 5 months to see Star Wars: but that's okay, the force is with them, right? On the other hand, Democrats do have a point that money means alot more to the middle class than to the rich: take away 40% of a billionare's yearly earning, and he can still live a great life. If he runs into financial problems, fuck him. Fifteen Porsches, a few Ferraris, a Limo, and a private Jet are not necessities. Personally, I think anyone who makes an income of over a million dollars a year should not be allowed to declare bankrupcy for the next 20 years. Businesses also shouldn't be allowed to declare bankrupcy. Bankrupcy is for some poor/middle-class fuck who never pulled in the kind of income to deal with a moderate amount of debt. Its not for fucks like MC Hammer who racked in 10 million a year and somehow run out.
So, back to taxes, I think that the amount of money we pay in taxes should be proportional to the fraction of how much money we made in a year, versus the entire "income" of the nation in a year, GNP. If I account for 0.00000001% of the GNP, then I should have to pay proportional to that; maybe it would be something like 100 times the fraction of "your money"/GNP. So if I make twice as much money as you, I pay twice the percentage of taxes. This way, I never end up making less money per year after taxes than someone who racked in less than me (which is bullshit).
The armed forces and the environment are things I'm independent on. They're both important, but neither should be placed above balancing the budget (the government shouldn't be allowed to have a non-balanced budget; its irresponsible and sets a bad exmaple). Also, "protecting the environment" at the expense of people is bullshit; sorry, but those fucking sucker-fish in Ohio aren't important enough to deny farmers needed water. The military I see as being more important, but I think we should spend money more wisely. I'm not talking about "Star Wars" here; that was just a plan by Reagan to get the Russians to give up. I'm talking about just making smart decisions.
Unlike Democrats, I believe in a free market. This business of subsidation and all sorts of other communistic non-sense is crap. But a free market does not mean without rules. A free market does not mean we allow the kind of crap Enron, Global Crossings, and MS partook in. Lets make an analogy to cards. A free market is like a game of cards where all sides are playing fairly and no one has an innate advantage. What the Democrats want is to look at the players and subsidize the dumbest one's by giving them extra chips or something. What the Republican's tolerate is when one fuck is pulling cards out of his sleave.
Anyways, back to the issue at hand -- digital rights, consumer rights, and privacy issues. On these issues, the majority Democrats and Republicans stand in unison: against US, the WE THE PEOPLE. Now, on to this bill. As I said before, I doubt this bill is anything that's good for us. I know this is a little bit of a fallacy (i.e., messenger with message), but what are the odds this bill actually increases privacy is that fuck Hollings supports it? Hollings is as much an arch-enemy to digitally-rights minded people as is Bill Gates.
So, lets look at the situation. Upon skimming the Bill, I've determined its not bad, and fault Trent Lott for stalling it. However, the bill is clearly weak. The penalty for disclosing "non-sensitive private information" is $200 dollars? What a crock of shit. My privacy, even if "non-sensitive," is worth more than 200 dollars. The right to privacy is gaurenteed by the fucking constitution, shouldn't violations of it warrant jail time, just like violations of the right to life? Upon showing the harm a person suffered, he's entitled to "the monetary loss from the damage" or "$5,000". Again, weak. Larger fines (I'm talking 10k minimum) and jail-time should be a minimal. On the bright side, repeat offenders can be fined up to $100,000. On the other hand, that up to should be "a minimum of"! Then there's the "exception", pure bullshit. In the case of this bill, the "exception" should be a mitigating factor in the defense. The exception is: "Neither an action to enjoin or restrain a violation, nor an action to recover for loss or damage, may be brought under this section for the accidental disclosure of information if the disclosure was caused by an Act of God, unforeseeable network or systems failure, or other event beyond the control of the Internet service provider, online service provider, or operator of a commercial website." An "act of god"? What religious bullshit is that. Congressment continually illustrate the pin-headed imbeciles they are by wording like this. Accidental disclosure, or network/system failure are in the control of ISP's. You entrust ISP's with your private information -- its their responsibility to make sure its secure. If your information is leaked because they stored it on a Windows machine protected by a character-only 8-letter password, they should be liable. This should be a mitigating factor in punishment, not a defense. The section on "Applications to the Senate" is vague. The section on applications to federal agencies is crap, as it creates exceptions: Federal Agencies should be under strict rules just like everyone else.
In short, this bill is toothless. Its simply an attempt on the part of that fuck Hollings to gain back some good standing with the same consituency he lost face with for supporting the SSSCA and the DMCA. I'll post a more detailed critique of the bill upon further analysis.
However, despite my criticisms, this bill is better thn the current situation: which is, no rules at all. But that doesn't excuse half-measures. Either get all the way on or all the way off. Don't try to straddle the fence. Shit or get off the pot.
3000 people that we know of. So I overstated things.
So, according to you, its inhuman to wish that -- if someone had to die, as is the case when the World Trade Center gets blown up during working hours -- the people that died were sick evil fucks as opposed to honest good citizens? Corrupt politicians, corrupt judges, rapists, murderers, child-molesters, and other criminals, as opposed to honest law-abiding citizens? The slime of the earth like these fucks at PETA, CC (Christian Coalition), NAMBLA, RIAA, and the MPAA, as opposed to honest law-abiding citizens?
If you say no to this, then you're saying you'd rather have the honest law-abiding citizens be dead.
Of course, your position is you wouldn't wish anything cruel on anyone. Bleeding-heart crap in my opinion, but if that's what you think.
You obviously don't put values on lives; I do. Do you really think that the life of sick fuck's like these pedophile priests, are better than the lives of people like say Colin Powell, an honorable man who fought for his country, and then later for children?
I'm not going to get nitty-gritty about it, but I'll say this much: I'd rather sick evil fucks die than ordinary people. Btw, I hate to use the word evil, b/c I associate it with Christian crap, but "sick evil fuck" is something George Carlin said, so that cleanses it of any religious crap.
Of course, in regards to the WTC, not all 3000 people who died were necessarily law-abiding citizens. But on average, the group was filled with good people.
If the terrorists had targetted a prison where they keep the worst offenders instead of the WTC, I would've been celebrating.
Call me whatever you will. But the fact is, 3000 people were going to die. It's only a matter of who died. The living victims of 9/11 probably wish it wasn't their family members who died -- in other words, wish it was someone else. Do you think they're inhumane too?
The fact is, we all put value on life, whether we want to admit it or not. Everyone values their family first, then friends. Most people value normal citizens over crooks.
Another nice side effect, were it a prison that were bombed instead of the WTC, is that there might not have been a war. GW Bush probably would've been secretly pleased, as would every other politician, had the terrorists somehow lost control of the plane and crashed into a prison (at a time when the gaurds/workers are gone, of course).
At least I have the courage to say what we all think and believe. You're just saying politically correct crap to up your "karma" or whatever.
Its all a crock of shit. The judges are owned by special interests. They don't represent the constitution or anything other than the new masters views.
A few more fucks to add to my list of people who should have been in the WTC instead of the 10,000 good, decent people who actually died.
Can't have your cake and eat it too
on
VMware and Games?
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· Score: 2
Games designed to run in windows will always work best in Windows. No matter how much better or more stable Linux is as an OS, something written to work in Windows just won't work as well in Linux with emulation. Not without perfect emulation, which would require much more information on MS Windows and its source (perhaps the 9 states can take care of that). Anyways, at the moment, games written to work in Windows will work better (i.e., faster, more stable ) in Windows. Don't expect to get 100fps in the Windows version of Descent 3 running under Linux; not even if you're using the latest greatest graphics card.
What I suggest you do is set up a minimal Windows partition, with only necessary Windows components installed (i.e., insert Windows install CD, and uncheck everything; even networking -- you can d/l your updates on your Linux partition and move them to the Windows partition). Then install the games on that Windows partition. That's how I have it for my games (Descent 1 - 3, Tombraider 1 - 5, Prince of Persia 1 & 2, Magic Carpet, and Jane's USAF). You'll probably want to twiddle with it a little bit to optimize it for gaming.
This works great for me because I don't plan on buying any new games (unless a new Descent or Tomb Raider comes out), as almost everything new I see on the market really really sucks (the one exception is Sacrafice, which I might at some point buy).
Some of the Linux zealots will tell you if you want to stick to principles, you should dump all Windows games and buy up Linux games. Personally, I think this is bullshit. I paid good money for my games (when I first bought Tomb Raider 4, it costed 30 dollars; Descent 2 was 50 dollars; etc). Asking people to throw away hundreds of dollars worth of investment is ludacrous, and I don't recommend you do it; not only that, but there are no ports for many games (i.e., where's the Linux port for Tombraider?).
Mostly, this isn't the fault of the Linux community but of MS, because they won't allow anyone the necessary information to make good (i.e., 95+% performance) emulators, which would be possible.
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After reading a few paragraphs of this uninspired, poorly spoken testimony by Jack Valentini, I've come to the obvious conclusion: (1) He's racist or at least a demagogue; (2) He's a lying bastard; (3) He's incredibly fucking dumb; (4) He's a short sighted man; (5) Because of the above, we have no more reason to consider his paranoia about "infringement" today than we did back then.
(1) He's a racist/demagogue. Its obvious from this that the man is racist. His remarks regarding the Japanese come in the category of "they're fucking us over" paranoia. If he's not a racist, he's at least a demagogue, willing to rile up people's sentiments to fulfill his ambitions. In other words, he's fine with the fact that his testimony leaves people with racist impressions, or that it leaves them irrationally stereotyping.
(2) He's a lying bastard. This is an obvious point, as video tapes have no ruining the movie industry; in fact, they've made it stronger. Why should we trust what he says now? Its motivated by the same paranoia as was what he said back then?
(3) He's incredibly fucking dumb. Well, if he's not (2) a lying bastard, he's (3) incredibly fucking dumb. If he sincerely believed that video's would ruin his industry, he's obviously fucking dumb. The past 20 years have proven that. So, why should we value the paranoid predictions of a fucking idiot? He's sort of like those religious idiots who were claiming apocalypse was coming at the millenium, 2000. Then it didn't come. So they said, "oh wait, the millenium's really 2001 because there was no year 0". Well, apocalypse didn't come then either. Now, they're backpeddling. See the parallels between them and Valentini? He predicted doom once, and it didn't come. He's predicted and predicting doom now, and it still isn't coming.
(4) & (5): He's an incredibly short-sighted man, and we shouldn't trust his paranoid prophecies any more now than should we have back them. These points follow as obvious consequences of the previous points.
Lets see, comparing OSS/FSS and proprietary ware. Lets say you have 1,000 computers. MS WinXP Pro costs 300 dollars. But businesses get special "deals". So lets say it costs 10 dollars for a business; that amounts to 10,000 dollars for all 1,000 computers. For that $10,000 dollars, you get an operating system that's: (1) Plaqued with security issues; (2) Has stability problems; (3) Is bloated and slow, and loaded with bloatware; (4) Violates your privacy; (5) Includes DRM technology. In addition, you have to spend resources keeping track of your proof of purchase. The icing on the cake is that you get the priviledge of panicking over a BSA investigation. When a BSA investigation comes, you get the priviledge of paying lawyers bills, losing money from bad press (2) the other usability advantages such as sticky menus; (3) stability advantages; (4) no risk of BSA; (5) it doesn't take 15 minutes to add a simple feature like hyphenation, as it does with MS Office. The simple fact is, that OpenOffice can do almost anything MS Office can do; the features MS Office has that OpenOffice doesn't are useless or annoying ones, like automatic formatting or the stupid M&M help thing.
One final note, idiot, if a company does use OpenOffice and notices deficiencies in it, or that it doesn't exactly meet their needs, they can HIRE programmers to customize it, as its FSS software. Unlike in the case of MS Office. If there's something in MS Office hte company doesn't like, its tough shit. The amount of money it costs a company to hire someone to tailor it will probably not be more than they would've spend had they bought an MS product.
"Opportunity cost" jobs that were lost? In other words, its theoretical and the industry can shove any bullshit numbers they want down our throats, because its all based on unprovable assumptions and conclusions.
I never said that only programmer's jobs matter. Didn't hooked on puh-honix work for you? My point was simply that they are being mis-representive. They are trying to imply that it has cost 100,000 programmers their jobs. Firstly, if it has had an effect, it has been more on the beurocracy than the programmers. When software companies are looking to fire people, they don't fire programmers first. Secondly, the statement itself is a complete distortion. If you believe their hodge-podge methods of estimating "hundreds of thousands", then it is in jobs that they couldn't give people: not because of firings.
Again, next time think before you speak. It can save you from banging your head in the wall, trying to defend statements which were obviously not well thought.
By the way, next time you have something incredibly stupid to say, you might not want to be an ass in the way you say it. It might save you from such a harsh correction.
(1) They lie. Or at least mis-represent. 57% of people admit to downloading software they haven't paid for. So what? Whether the idiots at the BSA realize it or not, non-costware is much more popular among the people than is costware. Shareware, Freeware, Adware, OSS, and FS software are much much much more popular than costware; not only because they're free (or usually free in the case of OSS / FS), but also because they're just better. With OpenOffice, you get a completely functional presentation program (Impress) that can edit power-point files: for free. MS PowerPoint ALONE costs 300 dollars. Lets say that OpenOffice's Impress costed 1 dollar. Is MS PowerPoint really 300 times better than OpenOffice Impress? No, that's laughable; in fact, some claim that Impress is superior. So, in short, yes 57% of people probably have downloaded software from the internet without paying; its probably more like 100%, just the other 43% were too stupid to understand the question, or understand that at one point they probably DID download software without paying for it.
(2) Piracy costs "hundreds of thousands of jobs a year". LOL. Please, that is pure bullshit. 100,000 people in the US software industry were fired last year? Oh, sure, if you include janitors and other people that "work for software companies" but have nothing to do with software, then maybe 100,000 people were fired. Maybe. But come on, get real. 100,000 programmers were not fired last year. Lying bastards.
(3) On MIT tracking copies of pirated software. Traitors. Clearly sellouts for academics, siding with the powerful intellectual property industry against the academics who realize the importance of balance. As for them knowing "you" downloaded a song, bullshit. I'm sorry, but there's no way in hell they can track the activities of all the file-sharerers even in the US alone. Furthermore, let them prove it. All they have is digital records, all of which can be made up and faked. Finally, even if they convince some idiotic judge that you in fact downloaded the latest S. Twain song w/o paying for it, so what? Firstly, its not a criminal offense. Secondly, pay the $19 dollars that that CD albulm costs; big deal. You'll make up for it by all the stuff they didn't catch.
So, let me get this straight, not only is Lucas destroying the Star Wars legacy by the laughable Ep I and II (though Ep III may be better if he doesn't fuck up Darth Vader), but now, he's also going to destroy the original Star Wars by "redoing it"? This is turning into a more shameless franchise than Jaws was. And you don't see Spielbeg, now, more than a decade later, going back and trying to squeeze more money out of Jaws, do you? No. He certainly could justify it -- after all, modern special effects could make it look realistic by today's standards. But, because he has some class, he's chosen not to fuck with a good thing.
Lucas, however, displays no such class.
Star Wars IV - VI were brilliant, great movies. But lets face it, Lucas was a 3-hit wonder. What other movies has Lucas made that are worth watching? Certainly not Star Wars I or II.
Are you really sure you're 18? Because the non-sense and poor grammar in that response seemed more appropriate of an 8-year old.
To be quite frank, certain things are below certain age groups. Period. There are a number of things which adults simply don't do any more because they have grown up; for example, playing with legos or those GI soldier kits. People who grow up stop doing these things. Perhaps you haven't grown up yet -- as is obvious from your post -- but for a moment try to think like your actually a mature person (amazing concept).
The simplistic things which once amused adults, they now find idiotic and boring. Playing with a slinky just isn't a way for me to pass the afternoon. Maybe it is for you. While your at it, you can also tune in your TV to "Power Rangers" or "Transformers". And when you go out to eat at a restaurant with friends, make sure to say, "my daddy always says," instead of "my father said". Hey, these things are still normal for some adults to do, right? Never mind the fact that such adults usually have a form of mental retardation.
But, hey, I'm sure your a real fan. Maybe you were even one of the jobless bums waiting in line for 4 months to be the first to watch the new Star Wars movie. Don't have a job, but no matter: "The Force is With You".
As for "all the 30 year old dumbasses out there in Vader Costumes," can you say "mentally challenged"? You want to join that group, fine.
PS: I don't watch or refuse to watch movies because they're "cool" or "uncool". I watch or refuse to watch movies because they're excellent or poor, respectively. Spidey & Star Wars II are cool movies. As for quality, they rank on par with Jurassic Park 3 and Jaws 3 or 4: total and completely worthless crap.
First, let me say, I'm not a kid. I'm 21. Which is precisely why I'm not going to now -- nor ever -- see this stupid Spiderman film. Even when I was a kid, I didn't like Spiderman comics or TV-series.
Spiderman is, imo, from what I've seen, a purely for kids movie. Unlike the original Star Wars IV - VI, which could be enjoyed by kids who just wanted a fun movie, and which was serious enough that adults wouldn't feel like idiots watching it. There are some things which are just too stupid, too childish, for an adult to even watch by him or herself. Spiderman is one of those things. Congratulations to the creators of Spiderman for making a movie targetted to children which made them an awful awful lotta money. I'm sure that if they'd released a 3D animated movie of Transformers it'd do just as well. Big deal.
What really gets me is that some people are actually trying to say this is "a classic", or "a great movie". As of simply because its sold a lot, it deserves to be compared with great movies such as the original Star Wars series, Jurassic Park, Jaws, Titanic, and so on and so forth. Lets get one thing straight: "Spidey" isn't in that class of movies. There's nothing brilliant about it, as there was in Jaws. There's no revolution in special effects, as was done in Jurassic Park.
So, please, people lets not do real movies a disservice by saying Spiderman is anything all that great. It's a for-kids movie that sold alot. Big deal.
On the other hand, on to Star Wars. Whereas Spidey can't be classified as a great movie because it simply lacks the substance or revolutionary elements, these new Star Wars movies can't be classified as great because they're targetted specifically at Star-Wars nerds. Outside of Star-Wars nerds, no one's really interested in Darth Vaders' child-hood, ok? I happen to really like Star Wars, but I'm still not interested in Anakin Skywalker. I'll be more than interested to see how the evil Emperor turns him into Darth Vader in Ep 3., but that's yet to come. Hopefully, Lucas won't screw up Darth Vader, give him some dumb voice, make him the wrong height, or some nonsense like that.
The simple fact is, as is said earlier, Lucas tries to take it too serious. That would be OK, if we could actually believe it should be serious. With the original Star Wars, you could take it as just fun, but it was also dead serious; Darth Vader was dead serious. But the new Star Wars eps, with Darth Maul? Come on, that guy looked like some poor rip off of a painting of a demon. Try to be a little more creative than red makeup and horns, Lucas. Gee, red make-up and horns? That might be original if not for the THOUSANDS of Christian zealots who've already used that image as the anti-christ for their religion.
Part of it isn't Lucas' fault. I mean, no matter what he does, no Darth Sith he can come up with is going to in any way be able to hold a candle to Darth Vader. But he could've done better than Darth Maul. Even the name was lame.
And another thing, despite MORE THAN A DECADE of special effects but Jaws 2, 3, 4? All pathetic jokes. Jurassic Park 1, great in every way. Jurassic Park 2 was a fun action film, not too much plot other than hunters v. tree-huggers...but still really fun to watch. Jurassic Park 3? Boring. Plot in it was lame, action was lame; as I've said on epinions.com, Jurassic Park 3 tried to be everything that Jurassic Park 1 was, and failed in every possible conceivable way.
I really see parallels between Jurassic Park 3 and Jaws 3/4 and Star Wars I/II. Just a lame money-grab, nothing new to add to the saga. The standard for doing a sequel should be in light of the legacy: does the sequel enhance or diminish the legacy? I think that these new Star Wars I/II movies do nothing to enhance the Star Wars legacy, and in fact diminish it by diluting the real Star Wars movies (IV, V, and VI) with money-grabbing rubbish.
If your a real Star Wars fan, and you really want to see Star Wars, then pop in your IV, V, and VI tapes. You get to watch those for free, and you won't be left with the bad taste in your mouth.
Star Wars III is My Last Hope for Lucas to redeem himself. Hopefully, when Lucas can have a Star Wars movie based around turning Anakin Skywalker into the half-machine Darth Vader, that will be something worth seeing.
The laws should stay as they are. Someone should be penalized based on how much profit they made from pirating, not the "retail price" some company sets their software at. Pirated software, unlike legal proprietary software, is subject to market pressures. That CD is ONLY worth $10.
Of course, this would be bad news for the GPL; but people can modify the GPL in making their software, and hopefully we can lobby RMS to modify it a little. If you're worried about MS ripping off your GPL'ed code, include a clause in it like this:
"Any individual or organization who violates this license is liable for up to $1,000,000 dollars or up to half their net worth, whiever is larger. The licenser may choose to allow this to pass"
Libel laws, as currently written, are nothing more than a tool used by the powerful to silence those less powerful. They are completely and utterly without merit. Want proof? When was the last time a libel suit was filed against Jesse Jackson, or Al Sharpton? These are individuals who certainly knowingly engage in destroying people's reputations for political gain. The reason lawsuits aren't filed against them is because they're rich, and the defendants are (relatively) poor.
Libel laws should be completely redrafted, as should all civil law. For one thing, we should receive the SAME protections under civil law as we receive under criminal law. The plaintiff should have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. The logic behind why proof beyond a reasonable doubt is required for a criminal case, but not a civil one...is ludicrous. Someone losing millions of dollars is just as severe as them being sent to jail for years.
But as for libel laws in particular, it should have to be proven that the person knowingly and maliciously destroyed a (wo)man's reputation, when the defendant knew that (wo)man hadn't done what they allege.
As for this particular case, the idea that a court in one state has jurisdiction over a man in another who's never even visited that state is absurd. Certainly, even if a judgement is made, there's no way the court can exact the payment of the verdict, as it has no authority to order the impoundment of finances in another state.
Certainly, no person/organization in the US should ever be held liable for violating the IP/libel laws in another nation. US courts should be very clear that they will NOT enforce any decisions made by non-US courts within the US. I also think that its ludacrous that people in one state should be held liable according to the laws of another. Someone in CA should not have to worry about libel laws in FL. If I publish a newspaper here in NY, I shouldn't have to worry about the libel laws in FL; that should certainly be the same for if I publish it on the Internet. Otherwise, publishing something on the internet makes a US citizen liable to the laws of every state in the nation: that's fucking absurd.
Here's my proposal for copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, and other terms. Let me briefly justify it by saying that in terms of "shelf life" music and software on average have very short periods of popularity. I know some idiot is going to respond to this saying that "people still listen to Beethoven" and that "basic UNIX code has been around forever," so let me qualify that by saying that the vast vast majority of software and music is obsolete in a few years. In software, this is especially true for the vast majority of games; older games like (i.e., Tomb Raider I) may still be played, but they're hardly selling points for their companies (i.e., Eidos). Same thing with most music. There are always a few exceptions; but even in the cases of exceptions -- i.e., music by Madonna -- the revenues from 5 year old albums is very miniscule compared to that from albums just recently released. As for movies, they have a longer shelf life. Books and artistic works (i.e., paintings) probably have the longest "life-span". On to patents; most inventors recover the cost of their investment on patents in much less time than 20 years, so I propose scaling this protection back as well. Here's my specific proposals:
I. Copyrights.
As a general preface, aside from the duration changes which will be mentioned, copyrights must also be reformed such as to eliminate copyright-abuses. For example, assinite terms of the EULA should not be protected by the laws. Furthermore, copyrights should be modified such that equal licensing terms are mandated. Also, any copyrighted work coupled with DRM or other technologies which in any way hinder fair use will be protected; in other words, copyright owners must by law ensure fair use priviledges to their customers (as is the law in Russia). On a similar vein, when the duration of a work expires, the owner must make make available any information pertinent to that work so as to make it public domain (i.e., the source code); this is ensured by mandating that copyright owners submit their source code to the government when registering copyrights. Furthermore, no technologies which further consumers' fair use rights may be hindered. This is hardly a comprehensive list of necessary reforms.
II. Patents
As a general preface, aside from the duration changes which will be mentioned, patents must also be reformed such that no patent is granted where prior art is present. Furthermore, to aid in this goal, all pending patents must be opened up so that the public can look for cases of prior art. This is largely intended to put an end to the shameless cases of biopiracy, where Indigenous people's knowledge is being plundered by greedy corporations, which then make Indigenous peoples pay for the medicines they themselves created. Furthermore, patents should be reformed such that equal terms licensing is required. Independent or nearly independent co-discovery of the same thing will be recognized; Newton and Leibnez both invented Calculus independently. One may have invented it slightly before the other, but that hardly means that only one should be recognized. In such modern-day cases of independent co-discovery, both inventors will be entitled to rights. Finally, full and complete disclosure of the relevant materials/procedures (i.e., source code, algorithms) to the public will be required. This is hardly comprehensive list of ways in which current patent laws need to be modified to stamp out corrupted, poor elements of patent law.
III. Trade Secrets.
Trade secrets will be abolished. If a company wants to keep a secret, that should be their obligation and responsibility; courts should not be helping them to do so by silencing anyone who "discovers their secret". Aside from that, trade secrets are a potential danger to the public, since we know not what they are. We live in a democracy, and the idea of the government protecting corporate secrets is the anti-thesis to an open, free society.
IV. Trademarks.
I do not think that current durations on trademarks should be altered. Trademarks in fact help the public by allowing us to easily distinguish between different kinds of products. What should be modified is the scope of trademark laws. Trademarks should apply very specifically to their field. Furthermore, trademarks should have to be on an original phrase; i.e., trademarking "Windows" is not allowed. There are also numerous examples where trademark owners try to restrict language outside of their specific field. For example, Intel Inside and Yoga Inside; Coke suing a book-dealer for quoting praise of a book which said "its the real thing"; and so on and so forth. None of that non-sense should be allowed. Trademarks in the software industry should not cross over into other industries, and vica versa. Ideally, trademarks should be new words or new phrases, never-before-said; i.e., Intelliside should be preferable to Intel Inside. However, if that's not done, at the very least, the trademarks should only be enforced specifically within an industry. In the granting of trademarks, more scrutiny should be given to one's which are not new words or phrases, never-before-said. The idea is to prevent corporations and religions from carving up the English language amongst themselves.
V. Scientology
As one final note, I would like to say that something needs to be done about Scientology and copyright laws, trademark laws, and possibly patent laws. It should not be possible for Scientology -- or any other half-baked religion -- to use IP laws as a way to beat their members into submission, silence critis, and other such nonsense. In short, to protect freedom of speech and freedom of religion, intellectual property laws must not apply to religion. If something is to qualify as a religion, its books, so to speak, must be completely open, public domain. No IP laws should be used to silence parody, criticism, review, or fair-use: any such attempt to use IP laws to silence parody, criticism, review, or fair-use will be deemed as an abuse of that copyright, patent, or trade-secret, and will result in losing the rights to that particular piece. Repeated attempts to abuse IP-"rights" on the part of corporations or organizations will result in them losing all of their IP-"rights".
VI. Final Notes.
As a final note, I should say that my system has the advantage of rewarding extended terms based on how well something is selling. There is obviously little point in offering a long extension for a work which is only selling at 0.01% of maximum volume. Perhaps using the maximum sales as a reference point is a little bit too much; perhaps the average sale over the initial term should be used, or the midpoint between the max and the average. However, the point remains the same: that this system rewards extensions in proportion to how well something is selling. This neutralizes criticism from people who say, "oh, but there's some works who sell well for a long time". Any suggestions on other ways to stamp out abuse of the IP-system would be welcome.
Audiogalaxy, KazaaLite, aren't great compared to P2P Limewire. LimeWire and other true P2P (completely decentralized) software can't be regulated or banned. Not only that, but its getting better in terms of speed and reliability; also, its getting more users, and LimeWire's usually the place I go to find rare songs, like "Now You Suck," by the Yeastie Girls.
I still use KazaaLite in tandem with LimeWire, but LimeWire is becoming more and more my primary option. Not to mention, its RMS-friendly, since it uses the GNU GPL.
That of course doesn't justify the RIAA/MPAA's actions. Centralized services for distribution should not be held responsible for the content being distributed, not any more than ISP's should have to micro-monitor their users. File-sharing services can be used for many many purposes, most of which have nothing to do with sharing copyrighted works. Since the pattern seems to be like Wack-a-mole -- where RIAA/MPAA sue one file-sharing service, then another pops up -- perhaps eventually we'll get a SANE ruling from a judge who isn't paid for and owned by big money.
The RIAA has a point, but what they're really mad about is that they want more power to make and break songs. The RIAA has the power to make and break songs. So does Clear Channel. So the reason the RIAA's pissed off is because another organization can break a song that they wanted to make, or make a song they wanted to break. That's all they're upset about. Don't fool yourself into thinking they actually give a damn about artists. Also, this is a tactical move on the part of the RIAA to try to get some good press, after getting so much bad press over their previous wrong-doings.
That said, politics does make strange issues. For this particular one, the RIAA happens to be right. No sense in refusing help from a powerful ally; just so long as you remember this is like WWII, in the RIAA is like Stalin. The enemy of our enemy is only our friend in that particular case, and only so long as our enemy is a threat.
In fighting against Clear Channel, the RIAA may be a useful ally. However, they will not be an ally in building a new world order afterwards. They will simply want to replace Clear Channel with an organization they control.
What is really needed is what Lawrence Lessig proposed -- free airwaves. This is now possible due to current technologies. Free does not necessarily mean unregulated, as Lessig says. The basic idea behind this is that people wanting to use the airwaves are dynamically assigned a frequency upon request. Each person would have some identifier which would help radio-goers find him, no matter what frequency he was on.
This is very much possible with upcoming technology. We should start moving towards this ideal of free airwaves -- the airwaves need to be revolutionized to be like then net, where everyone has an opportunity to put something on them. Perhaps we can start out by making "half" of the radio-frequencies "free" in such a manner.
Destroying what little democracy there is -- that the net's users can vote -- is not a reform of any kind. It is a power grab. They don't want to be accountable to the public which they are controlling.
What really needs to happen is that the ICANN should be completely eliminated. Every decision about assigning IP addresses to corresponding web addresses should be democratically made by the net-community. That is, every issue should be voted on by the net. The internet makes it possible to have a true democracy as did the Greeks. We should go in that direction.
That's why I, and you, should call these people music-nazis or movie-nazis. They are a dangerous group of extremists: just as dangerous to the public as the KKK, Scientologists, and NAMBLA.
Hasn't anyone else noticed that the RIAA and MPAA websites look like front-ends for the entry into "the dark side of the force"? At least their honest about it, unlike the priests: black evil souls should wear black clothes, and have black web pages.
In other news, a public statement was released by the supreme asshole, the originator of all internet ads, the fuck who schemed up banner ads, pop-unders, pop-ups, screen-take-overs, home-page-stealers, link-stealers. He stated that he was claiming patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets on all of these "brilliant" "great" ideas which have so promoted progress in the Useful Arts and Sciences, and now will be charging a million dollars for each instance of their use.
He also said that if he found out anyone was using these techniques without paying him royalties, not only would he sue them, but he would also send them fifteen thousand SPAMs, another thing he's claiming patents, copyrigths, trademarks, and trade secrets on.
"When you think about it, aren't pop-unders better than pop-overs?"
No, you stupid fuck, pop-unders aren't better than pop-ups; in fact, quite the opposite. With pop-ups, at least we know they are there and can quickly close them, preventing them from opening more windows or using more of our resources. Pop-unders may go unnoticed, thus stealing our resources, while simultaneously opening up more pop-unders, thus stealing more of our resources, until the entire system comes to a screeching halt trying to deal with twenty-thousand pop-unders.
Lets stop all the whoopla about Warez. Be realistic -- it doesn't cost businesses a thing. Most people who d/l Warez wouldn't have paid the steep price for the program anyways, so companies lose no money. They're just using it as an excuse to keep prices arbitrarily high. The average person who d/l's a pirated version of PowerPoint would never fork over the absurd $300 that MS is demanding for Power Point. Come on, this is pure bullshit. Like they actually produce any REAL updates anyways. Powerpoint today is basically the same as it was in '97. I'm not willing to pay more than 50 bucks for great games -- and these are pieces of software which actually involved real work to make, which actually did evolve, and which cost a lot of money to make. If you tell me it cost Outrage a lot of money to make Descent 3, I'll buy into that argument. If you tell me it cost MS a lot of money to upgrade PowerPoint 2000 to PowerPoint XP, I say that's a load of fucking bullshit.
As for people searching for Warez via search engines, that's mostly useless. Even using cross referencing, its difficult to get a good Warez page. 99% of all "warez" pages are really fronts for pop-up porno operations. When it comes to Warez, you really need to "be in" to be able to access it.
If someone breaks into my computer from off-site and uses it for some purpose, whether it harms the computer or not, they should have to pay me money. Furthermore, this is illegal: breaking and entering. I don't want anyone using my computer without my persmission -- irrelevant of the reason, and irrelevant of the effect it has on my computer.
However, Intel's case is decidedly different. For one thing, the e-mails are their *employees* e-mail addresses. Its up to the employees to decide whether or not they want to receive them, not Intel. Furthermore, if Intel's really serious about this, they'd set their servers not to accept any e-mails from the e-mail address of their former employee.
Irrelevant of such, it comes down to a question of who's decision is it? Intel or their employees'? Intel does own the server and computers; however, their employees have certain rights despite such. If it is Intel's right to decide whether or not they want to accept the e-mail, they should be able to call for restraints against their former employee, the same way we could demand a spammer stop sending us e-mail, and have legal force. If we want to be able to legally prevent someone from sending us SPAM (or any other unsolicited or unwanted e-mail) so should Intel.
All these new technology laws out there (except anti-SPAM laws) suck, but do they really have any statistical impact?
The rulings against Napster hasn't put a dent in file-sharing. No legal actions ever will, especially now with completely decentralized services, like LimeWire, which are open-sourced and who's development can never be stopped, due to it being open-sourced.
The ruling against DeCSS hasn't put a dent in its distribution or use.
Quite frankly, courts or government's don't have the power to regulate the internet. For one thing, there's jurisdiction issues: simply distribute from Russia, for example. For another, they can't necessarily hold anyone accountable for developing such (say Open-DVD players or file-sharing) software, because people can collaborate and contribute anonymously, from public computers, using a "handle".
Of course, this is a threat to open (that is, non-anonymous) development of OSS of FS, but big deal. If developers are really that eager for recognition, they can move to a country with no prohibitions on the software and openly develop there.
This doesn't mean we shouldn't fight against these laws. In fact, its a good reason to advocate not passing these laws: because they just don't work.
Anyone who waits in line to see Star Wars 2 for months is a Loser with a capital L. Get a life. I like Star Wars also, but I'm not going to camp outside Regal Cinema to be the first one in. The movie will be just as good in two weeks, when its less crowded. What would really really be funny is if one of these losers got to the front of the line after waiting 3 months and realized (s)he'd forgotten his or her wallot. LOL. Now that would be funny. Anyone who waits in line 3 months is probably a jobless bum. But, hey, "The force is with them," right?
On a sidenote, what really amazes me is how a stupid comic-book based movie like Spiderman can actually pull in more the first weekend than real good movies like Jaws, Jurassic Park, Titanic, Star Wars (IV - VI), or the Indianna Jones trilogy.
"What laws has PETA broken? Or, do they deserve to die slowly, simply because you disagree with them personally? That is inhumane...The fact you equate an animal rights group, the music industry, the christian coalition with child molesters and rapists makes you just as bad as the groups you despise."
Actually, anyone who supports the death penalty supports executing people they disagree with personally. Rapists and murderers, for example, can be executed in Texas. They happen to have this view that rape and murder is OK; so we execute them. Ok, not exactly so -- they happen to have this view that rape and murder is OK, and they act on it; so we execute them.
Yes, I do group PETA, CC, MPAA, RIAA, and most politicians with rapists, murderers, and child-molesters. Because they all violate our rights.
PETA (~Al kaida). These are the people that think that animals are more important than humans, and who'd have farmers denied much needed water, to protect some freaking sucker fish. They also blow up buildings which are the sites of scientific research, where animals were being used. Terrorists.
CC (~NAMBLA). I believe the CC already has supported the murder of pro-choice advocates. They may have condemned the Neuremburg files site publicly, but they certainly had a hand in it. Also, there's the Christian-affiliated site which showed a homosexual boy burning, and said he died as punishment for being gay. But that's not directly affiliated w/ the CC. What the CC advocates is forcing women to give birth. In my book, that's as bad as what's done in China -- forcing women to have abortions. Forcing a woman to give birth, or to have an abortion, is an act analagous to rape. This puts the CC on par with NAMBLA (NAMBLA supports raping little children, CC supports raping women by forcing them to give birth).
The music/movie industry. I'm not talking about the entire music/movie industry here, only the people who don't make music or movies (i.e., the Valentini's or Rosen's). Perhaps no single act of theirs is equitable to rape, murder, or child molestment. But over the period of their careers, they screw us out of constitutional rights, which is the same thing rapists/murderers do. The right to life really isn't too great without the right to free speech and privacy, and other "higher rights".
Politicians. Same story as RIAA/MPAA above. Over their careers they violate many rights, and make decisions that unjustifiably cause people's deaths (refer to Janet Reno and Waco).
You have a good point about wrongful conviction, which can, however, be addressed by raising the bar for a death penalty -- namely, rock-hard evidence, such as DNA and expert testimony on vaginal tearings, would be required for the death penalty. Also, anyone currently in jail should be able to have a DNA test freely done, if they want to prove that they are innocent. If the test show they're guilty, however, the cost of the test is burdened by them.
Also, another thing I support: any prosecutor who knowingly prosecutes and convicts and innocent person should, upon being found out, have to serve a punishment equaling that the person he convicted served.
That's the practical side of things. On to theory. "People should not kill people". Bleeding-heart nonsense, imo. This class of criminals I'm talking about -- murderers, rapists, child-molesters, sexual-assaulters -- are a permanent danger to society, and need to be neutralized. I don't believe in an eye for an eye. I believe the only way to completely neutralize these dangerous threats to society -- and especially to their victims -- is to execute them. Try to look at it from the victims point of view -- they aren't safe from these people until they're executed.
As for the "honor system" you mention, where a raped-daughter's father kills the rapist because of honor, then the rapists father kills someone else because of honor, etc, this type of "honor" system doesn't exist in the US. Such spirals of death would not occur.
Furthermore, the reason fathers -- and mother's -- kill a person who rapes their child is not because of honor. Its because that's the only way to ensure they're children are safe from them. But, since you think this is "barbaric" perhaps you'd like to put the parent in jail for life, deprive the child of their loving father or mother, and cause further trauma in the child's life? What do you think should be the punishment for such a person? Do you really think we should put parents in jail for doing what comes naturally to parents, protecting their children from dangerous individuals?
Being a former Republican, I know this. Why don't we look at this so-called bill before we crucify Sen. Trent Lott...also, for preliminary analysis, I think the bill is crap because that fuck Sen. Hollings supports it: the same person who sponsored the SSSCA. I've converted to a moderate libertarian, mainly because of the Christian Right Wing and the Pro-Business-no-matter-what wings in the Republican party, which are two of the three wings in the Repblican party. The other wing -- the one I like -- is the wing that's main focus is crime, and says if someone kills, rapes, or molests, he should be fried (i.e., George W. Bush, referred to as the executioner by Jay Leno).
Anyways, I'm no longer a Republican b/c I disagree with them on a number of important issues: abortion and gay-rights being the most important. I also think democrats are assinite on this issue; the "hate-crimes" bullshit supported by Democrats is crap: Murder (not including vengence murders for raped daughters) should be punished by death, no matter what. Same thing with rape, child molestation, torture, wife-beating, and in my opinion, any other violent crime. Perhaps even an impalement or two for the serial killer/rapists...in Translyvania, when Vlad Dracula ruled, he impaled all criminals; needless to say, there wasn't much crime during his reign. I also think Democrats are full of shit on racism issues: if I own a private company, and the public owns no stock in it, I should be allowed to have whatever assinite hiring/firing/customer practices I choose. If I have assinite practices, people will protest, and I'll go out of business.
The "Pro-Life" wackos in the Republican party freak me out. Especially these fucks who say, "Parents should have to consent before their child has an abortion". This parent's rights crap. Parents rights means that the parents have the right to use corporal punishment on their children, but teacher's don't (and if they do, the parents will rip off their balls and skull fuck them). Parents rights means that parents have the right to check to make sure their kids aren't wearing thongs, but that perverted sick fuck Vice Principle's of schools like this bitch Rita Wilson don't. Parents rights, however, does not mean the poarent has the right to deny their child basic human rights. Forcing a person to give birth is cruel and inhumane, especially a teenager, who'll probably have to have a C-section. Put another way -- and here's something these brainless Pro-Life fucks can understand -- If you think its a parents right to force their child to give birth, then you must also think its a parent's right to force their child to have an abortion. Doesn't seem right, does it?
On taxes, I tend to agree with Republican's -- I work hard for my money, and government fucks don't deserve it. Neither do these poor fucks who are "in need", or "the children". What did some poor person ever do to deserve my money? The bum will probably spend it on drugs anyways. The same losers we pay welfare to are also probably the people that use that welfare check to wait in line 5 months to see Star Wars: but that's okay, the force is with them, right? On the other hand, Democrats do have a point that money means alot more to the middle class than to the rich: take away 40% of a billionare's yearly earning, and he can still live a great life. If he runs into financial problems, fuck him. Fifteen Porsches, a few Ferraris, a Limo, and a private Jet are not necessities. Personally, I think anyone who makes an income of over a million dollars a year should not be allowed to declare bankrupcy for the next 20 years. Businesses also shouldn't be allowed to declare bankrupcy. Bankrupcy is for some poor/middle-class fuck who never pulled in the kind of income to deal with a moderate amount of debt. Its not for fucks like MC Hammer who racked in 10 million a year and somehow run out.
So, back to taxes, I think that the amount of money we pay in taxes should be proportional to the fraction of how much money we made in a year, versus the entire "income" of the nation in a year, GNP. If I account for 0.00000001% of the GNP, then I should have to pay proportional to that; maybe it would be something like 100 times the fraction of "your money"/GNP. So if I make twice as much money as you, I pay twice the percentage of taxes. This way, I never end up making less money per year after taxes than someone who racked in less than me (which is bullshit).
The armed forces and the environment are things I'm independent on. They're both important, but neither should be placed above balancing the budget (the government shouldn't be allowed to have a non-balanced budget; its irresponsible and sets a bad exmaple). Also, "protecting the environment" at the expense of people is bullshit; sorry, but those fucking sucker-fish in Ohio aren't important enough to deny farmers needed water. The military I see as being more important, but I think we should spend money more wisely. I'm not talking about "Star Wars" here; that was just a plan by Reagan to get the Russians to give up. I'm talking about just making smart decisions.
Unlike Democrats, I believe in a free market. This business of subsidation and all sorts of other communistic non-sense is crap. But a free market does not mean without rules. A free market does not mean we allow the kind of crap Enron, Global Crossings, and MS partook in. Lets make an analogy to cards. A free market is like a game of cards where all sides are playing fairly and no one has an innate advantage. What the Democrats want is to look at the players and subsidize the dumbest one's by giving them extra chips or something. What the Republican's tolerate is when one fuck is pulling cards out of his sleave.
Anyways, back to the issue at hand -- digital rights, consumer rights, and privacy issues. On these issues, the majority Democrats and Republicans stand in unison: against US, the WE THE PEOPLE. Now, on to this bill. As I said before, I doubt this bill is anything that's good for us. I know this is a little bit of a fallacy (i.e., messenger with message), but what are the odds this bill actually increases privacy is that fuck Hollings supports it? Hollings is as much an arch-enemy to digitally-rights minded people as is Bill Gates.
So, lets look at the situation. Upon skimming the Bill, I've determined its not bad, and fault Trent Lott for stalling it. However, the bill is clearly weak. The penalty for disclosing "non-sensitive private information" is $200 dollars? What a crock of shit. My privacy, even if "non-sensitive," is worth more than 200 dollars. The right to privacy is gaurenteed by the fucking constitution, shouldn't violations of it warrant jail time, just like violations of the right to life? Upon showing the harm a person suffered, he's entitled to "the monetary loss from the damage" or "$5,000". Again, weak. Larger fines (I'm talking 10k minimum) and jail-time should be a minimal. On the bright side, repeat offenders can be fined up to $100,000. On the other hand, that up to should be "a minimum of"! Then there's the "exception", pure bullshit. In the case of this bill, the "exception" should be a mitigating factor in the defense. The exception is: "Neither an action to enjoin or restrain a violation, nor an action to recover for loss or damage, may be brought under this section for the accidental disclosure of information if the disclosure was caused by an Act of God, unforeseeable network or systems failure, or other event beyond the control of the Internet service provider, online service provider, or operator of a commercial website." An "act of god"? What religious bullshit is that. Congressment continually illustrate the pin-headed imbeciles they are by wording like this. Accidental disclosure, or network/system failure are in the control of ISP's. You entrust ISP's with your private information -- its their responsibility to make sure its secure. If your information is leaked because they stored it on a Windows machine protected by a character-only 8-letter password, they should be liable. This should be a mitigating factor in punishment, not a defense. The section on "Applications to the Senate" is vague. The section on applications to federal agencies is crap, as it creates exceptions: Federal Agencies should be under strict rules just like everyone else.
In short, this bill is toothless. Its simply an attempt on the part of that fuck Hollings to gain back some good standing with the same consituency he lost face with for supporting the SSSCA and the DMCA. I'll post a more detailed critique of the bill upon further analysis.
However, despite my criticisms, this bill is better thn the current situation: which is, no rules at all. But that doesn't excuse half-measures. Either get all the way on or all the way off. Don't try to straddle the fence. Shit or get off the pot.
3000 people that we know of. So I overstated things.
So, according to you, its inhuman to wish that -- if someone had to die, as is the case when the World Trade Center gets blown up during working hours -- the people that died were sick evil fucks as opposed to honest good citizens? Corrupt politicians, corrupt judges, rapists, murderers, child-molesters, and other criminals, as opposed to honest law-abiding citizens? The slime of the earth like these fucks at PETA, CC (Christian Coalition), NAMBLA, RIAA, and the MPAA, as opposed to honest law-abiding citizens?
If you say no to this, then you're saying you'd rather have the honest law-abiding citizens be dead.
Of course, your position is you wouldn't wish anything cruel on anyone. Bleeding-heart crap in my opinion, but if that's what you think.
You obviously don't put values on lives; I do. Do you really think that the life of sick fuck's like these pedophile priests, are better than the lives of people like say Colin Powell, an honorable man who fought for his country, and then later for children?
I'm not going to get nitty-gritty about it, but I'll say this much: I'd rather sick evil fucks die than ordinary people. Btw, I hate to use the word evil, b/c I associate it with Christian crap, but "sick evil fuck" is something George Carlin said, so that cleanses it of any religious crap.
Of course, in regards to the WTC, not all 3000 people who died were necessarily law-abiding citizens. But on average, the group was filled with good people.
If the terrorists had targetted a prison where they keep the worst offenders instead of the WTC, I would've been celebrating.
Call me whatever you will. But the fact is, 3000 people were going to die. It's only a matter of who died. The living victims of 9/11 probably wish it wasn't their family members who died -- in other words, wish it was someone else. Do you think they're inhumane too?
The fact is, we all put value on life, whether we want to admit it or not. Everyone values their family first, then friends. Most people value normal citizens over crooks.
Another nice side effect, were it a prison that were bombed instead of the WTC, is that there might not have been a war. GW Bush probably would've been secretly pleased, as would every other politician, had the terrorists somehow lost control of the plane and crashed into a prison (at a time when the gaurds/workers are gone, of course).
At least I have the courage to say what we all think and believe. You're just saying politically correct crap to up your "karma" or whatever.
The asshole at least owed us more than one line.
What a fucking prick.
Its all a crock of shit. The judges are owned by special interests. They don't represent the constitution or anything other than the new masters views.
A few more fucks to add to my list of people who should have been in the WTC instead of the 10,000 good, decent people who actually died.
Games designed to run in windows will always work best in Windows. No matter how much better or more stable Linux is as an OS, something written to work in Windows just won't work as well in Linux with emulation. Not without perfect emulation, which would require much more information on MS Windows and its source (perhaps the 9 states can take care of that). Anyways, at the moment, games written to work in Windows will work better (i.e., faster, more stable ) in Windows. Don't expect to get 100fps in the Windows version of Descent 3 running under Linux; not even if you're using the latest greatest graphics card.
What I suggest you do is set up a minimal Windows partition, with only necessary Windows components installed (i.e., insert Windows install CD, and uncheck everything; even networking -- you can d/l your updates on your Linux partition and move them to the Windows partition). Then install the games on that Windows partition. That's how I have it for my games (Descent 1 - 3, Tombraider 1 - 5, Prince of Persia 1 & 2, Magic Carpet, and Jane's USAF). You'll probably want to twiddle with it a little bit to optimize it for gaming.
This works great for me because I don't plan on buying any new games (unless a new Descent or Tomb Raider comes out), as almost everything new I see on the market really really sucks (the one exception is Sacrafice, which I might at some point buy).
Some of the Linux zealots will tell you if you want to stick to principles, you should dump all Windows games and buy up Linux games. Personally, I think this is bullshit. I paid good money for my games (when I first bought Tomb Raider 4, it costed 30 dollars; Descent 2 was 50 dollars; etc). Asking people to throw away hundreds of dollars worth of investment is ludacrous, and I don't recommend you do it; not only that, but there are no ports for many games (i.e., where's the Linux port for Tombraider?).
Mostly, this isn't the fault of the Linux community but of MS, because they won't allow anyone the necessary information to make good (i.e., 95+% performance) emulators, which would be possible.