The people I love, and I care about, I make sure htey know it every day...
That should be the case for everyone, but let's face it, it just isn't the case for many in today's self-centred world. As much as we might with it wasn't so, at least at times like Christmas people are reminded to think about someone else other than themselves.
But nowadays even that is being lost under an avalanche of greed; people are using it as a day for getting what they want, and not doing what they can to make others happy.
Are you being serious? Do you really equate caring about things other than possessions with a lack of money? Or vice versa, that having money means that you can suddenly ignore things like decency and happiness? That's a monumentally scary attitude similar to that of sociopaths and other people with serious mental problems.
Please someone tell me that this isn't the common geek attitude around here.
Yet again Christmas rolls round, and yet again we get an article in which geeks across the world can indulge in willy-wangling posts about who wants the latest and greatest geek toys. Since when was Christmas just about how much consumer electronics one can acquire?
What about intangible things such as goodwill, family and happiness? I know these things are deeply unfashionable to modern corporate consumers in USia, but they're what Christmas is supposed to be about. Whether you believe in God or not, you should be spending time trying to make others happy, not indulging in naked avarice.
I'm sure this is going to get me flamed, but why can't we have more focus on how we can make others happy rather than how we can make ourselves happy, before Christmas truly does become nothing more than Giftmas, the celebration of all things commercial.
Additionally, it is o.k. for a corporation to use their resources in nearly any way they see fit. If they buy a piece of land and then fill it with garbage, it will be difficult to resell, thus providing an economic incentive to not pollute.
If you think that events can be entirely kept separate from each other, then you're suffering from a real ignorance about how the world works my friend. A company could pollute its own land, sure, but to think that there would be no consequences outside of this is naive at best.
It is not "only right" that government ensure fairness.
Why? Are you happy with systems that perpetuate privilige and inequality?
Life isn't "fair" and the exetent of the involvement of government agencies is generally inversely correlated to the amount of "fairness" experienced.
Sure, life isn't fair, but does that mean we should accept that? Isn't that a failure of vision, accepting the worst rather than trying to improve things?
There is no "tyranny of the capitalist elite". Tyranny indicates an "absolute power" which cannot exist. Do the capitalist elite force you to buy their products or services? Do they require you to participate?
When the very essentials of day to day life are controlled by the capitalist elite then yes. Look at how few companies are behind the production of the goods you buy, and tell me there isn't such an elite that are responsible for the staples that millions of people require?
Nobody even requires you to stay in the country!
What a solution! Rather than fixing the system, we can move everybody elsewhere! It's amazing that people are happy to live in a system where you've more chance of bettering yourself by leaving entirely than by playing within the system.
In this "ideal" society, you simply don't enter into any contract which you feel is not a value to you. People value things differently, if you don't want to work for $5.00 per hour, don't. No one is forcing you to.
And if the alternative is death through starvation? Yes, I'm sure your position is "well, you have the choice to accept or not", but a choice between death and whatever contract is offered to you is no choice at all. When you are in this position, any contract is better than death, and in your libertarian wonderland, there is no recourse for people forced into slave labour contracts.
For you to claim that they have a right to life, is to claim that they have a right to have me support their life, which is untrue.
My there's a huge slippery slope...
Their lives are their own responsibility, not mine, and to argue otherwise, well, why don't you just start sending your paychecks to me, 'cause I want 'em, and everyone should get what they want right?
There's a huge difference between the right to life and your strawman. People can't just "get what they want", but they have the right to a minimum standard of living. Any other belief is pure selfishness and inhumane.
Additionally, it is o.k. for a corporation to use their resources in nearly any way they see fit. If they buy a piece of land and then fill it with garbage, it will be difficult to resell, thus providing an economic incentive to not pollute.
If you think that events can be entirely kept separate from each other, then you're suffering from a real ignorance about how the world works my friend. A company could pollute its own land, sure, but to think that there would be no consequences outside of this is naive at best.
It is not "only right" that government ensure fairness.
Why? Are you happy with systems that perpetuate privilige and inequality?
Life isn't "fair" and the exetent of the involvement of government agencies is generally inversely correlated to the amount of "fairness" experienced.
Sure, life isn't fair, but does that mean we should accept that? Isn't that a failure of vision, accepting the worst rather than trying to improve things?
There is no "tyranny of the capitalist elite". Tyranny indicates an "absolute power" which cannot exist. Do the capitalist elite force you to buy their products or services? Do they require you to participate?
When the very essentials of day to day life are controlled by the capitalist elite then yes. Look at how few companies are behind the production of the goods you buy, and tell me there isn't such an elite that are responsible for the staples that millions of people require?
Nobody even requires you to stay in the country!
What a solution! Rather than fixing the system, we can move everybody elsewhere! It's amazing that people are happy to live in a system where you've more chance of bettering yourself by leaving entirely than by playing within the system.
In this "ideal" society, you simply don't enter into any contract which you feel is not a value to you. People value things differently, if you don't want to work for $5.00 per hour, don't. No one is forcing you to.
And if the alternative is death through starvation? Yes, I'm sure your position is "well, you have the choice to accept or not", but a choice between death and whatever contract is offered to you is no choice at all. When you are in this position, any contract is better than death, and in your libertarian wonderland, there is no recourse for people forced into slave labour contracts.
For you to claim that they have a right to life, is to claim that they have a right to have me support their life, which is untrue.
My there's a huge slippery slope...
Their lives are their own responsibility, not mine, and to argue otherwise, well, why don't you just start sending your paychecks to me, 'cause I want 'em, and everyone should get what they want right?
There's a huge difference between the right to life and your strawman. People can't just "get what they want", but they have the right to a minimum standard of living. Any other belief is pure selfishness and inhumane.
I've been corrected by a Randite drone. How awful.
Bullshit! What we need is for people to take responsibility for their own lives.
Since the government represents the people, that's what I was talking about. Still, nice attempt at a strawman.
What is wrong with a corporation deciding how to use its own property?
When that usage is detrimental to people? Or do you believe that corporations are better than people? Oh wait, you probably do if you're spouting Randite crap at me. So it's alright for corporations to pollute then, because it's "how they use their own property"?
Is Budwiser going to start placing Miller Lite ads on it's beer cans? Of course not. But by your argument, the government should step in and force such things to happen.
*sigh* Strawman. Again. Budweiser is not in the advertising business now is it? Since media corporations have such a huge influence on society, it is only right that government ensures their fairness. Just look at the most respected news source on the planet - the BBC. A publicly-run organisation!
Oh, and you forgot to mention "jack-booted thugs" in your tirade.
It is the government's first and foremost duty to protect the constitutional rights of the individual against the tyranny of the majority. Unfortunately, the government has failed at even this.
And equally so, it is their duty to protect the rights of the majority against the tyranny of the capitalist elite. Because since the US is so profit-driven, majority is defined in terms of monetary value, and the "majority" is actually those who control 5% of the population and over half of its wealth.
And yet, the government has failed in this duty, thanks to fools like you that think "wealth creation" is some kind of sacred goal to be valued above all else, even things like human dignity.
Remember that there is no such dichotomy as "human rights" versus "property rights."
Yup, one is worth fighting for, the other is a byproduct of a capitalist society.
No human rights can exist without property rights.
Translation: if you don't own anything, you have no rights. Those that own more, have more rights to do as they please.
Since material goods are produced by the mind and effort of individual men, and are needed to sustain their lives, if the producer does not own the result of his effort, he does not own his life.
In your ideal society, please explain to me how wage slavery would be prevented.
To deny property rights means to turn men into property owned by the state. Whoever claims the "right" to "redistribute" the wealth produced by others is claiming the "right" to treat human beings as chattel.
No, because people have fundamental rights irrespective of whether or not they own property. Only Randroid nuts like you would think otherwise. By your reckoning the homeless, refugees and hunter-gatherer tribes do not have any rights, such as the right to life. What self-serving bullshit.
It's a great philosophy for people with plenty of resources and a lack of empathy for other people. Thankfully, most people aren't that cold.
Especially when so many huge media corporations are merging and taking each other to form such massive conglomerates, a strong government watchdog is needed to prevent these abuses of power. If AOL/Time Warner are allowed to get away with this, then they are basically being allowed to suppress their competition, and what kind of free market supports this? No kind at all.
The free market ideal that American culture reveres is only possible given a lack of monopolies and informed consumers. Here we have the worst of both worlds - a near-monopoly ensuring that consumers are ill-informed! And since other companies are just as bad, the only place we, the people, can turn to is the government. It is their duty to ensure that our needs are put first, rather than those of the corporate warlords.
Unfortunately, I somehow doubt Bush will see it that way. He's all for corporate power and unaccountability - just look at how so much of America's War on Drugs is now persued by private companies unaccountable to the electorate. Remember - you can vote to change your government, but you can't do anything to change a corporation.
Sorry, but there is a big difference in providing services and enslaving people on entitlements. It also is ludicrous to expect people for fork over nearly 1/2 of what they earn to the government.
Did you not understand my comment? Here, I'll repeat the gist of it... I am happy paying these taxes. And once again, if you feel contributing to the welfare of the society that gives so much to you, then go and live elsewhere.
Oh, and if you equate paying tax with enslavement then I suggest you read some history. Specifically, the history of slavery in the US. I think those people would have been happy if their slavery consisted of... paying taxes!
There is no such thing as home ownership or even any ownership.
So you're a hardcore anarchist then? I had you figured for a libertarian what with your delusional rants about slavery and taxation, but if you don't believe in property rights, what rights do you believe in?
I do know what communism is, I also know how it was twisted by a "Government" to fit its need.
So if you know what it is, why did you bring it up with regards to my post other than as a strawman?
Governments no longer serve people, they serve politicians and intrest groups first.
As opposed to corporations, who serve only their bottom line and are less accountable than any government.
As for France, gee, I have yet to read that startling claim. Guess the economies of a few other countries got in the way.
A quick google search brings up this, but I'm sure you'll ignore things like facts.
France is no threat to anyone but themselves, the people are great, their government stinks. Then again that works for here to.
Uh huh. Just out of interest, do you have a small enclave well-stocked with canned goods and ammo, or maybe a manifesto of some kind? Just curious...
And another megacorp gets its way in the crazy world of the USian corporate state. When will people learn that the rampant abuse of power by massive conglomerates is an inevitable slippery slope leading to a police state ruled by corporate warlords?
Napster was a bold venture that stood up to the current regime, allowing people to reclaim their rights in the face of adversary from conglomerates answerable only to their bottom line. And the toothless US government has once again shown that it is nothing other than the tool of the capitalist elite, rather than the defender of the rights of the majority.
I hear a lot about the tragedy of the commons with respect to government. But today we have the exact reverse - the tragedy of the elite. No longer does the majority have its way, instead the chosen few dictate the future of millions through their control over every essential resource.
And anyone that thinks that art is not essential to the well-being of a society is missing one of the wonders of humanity. Unfortunately, when art is subverted to serve the capitalist rulers, humanity suffers as a result.
Why is that you twits never bitch about the fact that government tax the piss out of you yet bitch and moan about some evil corporation.
Why would I bitch about taxes, when I fully agree that they are needed in order to provide essential services that allows those who don't have the same resources as I do? Unlike the so-called libertarians here on/. I fully accept that by living in a society, I have a moral obligation to other members of that society. I don't selfishly expect to reap the benefits whilst giving nothing in return.
Don't buy their product and the corp ain't really going to care. Don't buy into the government line, or send them your tax money and your in jail.
Don't buy into the government line? Move to another country. By living here you accept the social contract.
HELLO. Slight screw up in priorities mr. commie
Oh how sad. Name calling. And an ad hominem attack as well. Boo-fucking-hoo, I'm devastated.
And next time, learn what communism actually means before using it as an insult, okay?
BTW - free market is millions and millions times better than the crap that tanked the former Soviet. (let alone the crap tanking Europeans now - socialist governments are expensive and stifling)
Which is of course why France has the world's fastest growing economy. And where did the USSR enter into the conversation, other than as a strawman for you to attack?
Bullshit. This is exactly why a free market is good.
Because it allows a company to get to a position where they have the majority of people to be convinced that Microsoft == PC? That there is no alternative to Windows? Right...
Because we are free to use non-MS software. If it wasn't a free market, MS or some government sanctioned software company would be the only choice... and all things GNU, GPLed, Open Source, etc would not exist.
Nonsense. If the market were decently regulated then there would be more competition because no company would have such a huge monopoly. Other groups would have a far easier time having their OS accepted. Witness how BeOS sunk, despite having a technically superior OS to both Windows and Linux.
As if we needed any more examples of the rampant excesses that the supposed "free" market has bought us in the last century (and before, as the comment about the East India Company points out).
Time and time again, we see that corporations become large enough to strangle anything even resembling free trade, and that without a strong government to regulate them, a corporate dictatorship ensues, in which a coporations control over vital commodities gives them immense power over the lives of the proletariat.
I was pleased when I saw that the DOJ had finally moved to block the excesses of Microsoft's reign of terror over the computing industry, but in this new regime Gates and co have friends in the highest of places, all to willing to let "market forces" and the "invisible hand" determine the future.
Let me tell you, the invisible hand will bloody its knuckles against the hard rock of Microsoft's monopoly, to no effect.
Only by ensuring the market is tamed by regulations and a strong government can these kinds of abuses be tamed. A free market is not an unregulated libertarian paradise, for the only freedom that gives is the freedom to abuse. In an unregulated market, it is simply a race to gain the greatest market share, followed by a systematic procession to monopoly and corporate domination.
US corporations are famous for their abuses of power, especially against countries that cannot afford the resources necessary to combat them. And with corporate frontmen like Bush in charge, you can expect to see more government operations designed to allow US corporations to "increase profitability" through the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable.
> They are selling them here for less than $2500 and all proceeds are being used toward Spindl3top going nonprofit. Since Spindl3top and the FSF have joined hands (first mentioned here by Lucas) to create the official, noncommercial GNU hardware/free software database, this is a very important cause IMHO."
Be very careful of these people.
There whole operation is based on a massive deceit.
Please read this:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory&sid=200 1/ 2/21/19441/2905, in particular the thread by 'spiers'.
Please also note this:
>Look at the furious back-pedalling at
>
>http://www.spindl3top.org/faq.php
That's very true. When I wrote my article on k5 originally (reposted here http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=comments&sid=2001/2/21/19441/2905&cid=38#38 to an ad (http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory&sid=2001/2/21/19441/2905) for his business), it got dumped because it was essentially speculation. I had a very strong suspicion that they were running a profit-making enterprise, but from the goodwill it got from naive story posts in slashdot (not that you could truly expect any kind of integrity or checking of stories from them) it was masquerarding as a charity.
They did confirm that eventually:
me>Why doesn't the site say who is profiting from it?
reply> As of now? Nobody. Lucas has sunk some of his savings into it, which he does hope to recoup.
Which is otherwise known as a business. You invest money in the hope of getting more back.
Although:
Michael Leutenberg:
> I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this. The FSF is one of the organizations that will be donated to; once spindletop has money to do donations.
uh huh
whereas:
Lucas:
> Give me a break, what will my crap pocketchange per video card or whatever do for the FSF? Nothing. They get a lot of money from other places, grants or whatever.
hmm.
I did intend to write another article from the firmer basis: this is a business but people are under the false impression it's a charity, but sadly my indolence took over. By making this 'plain', tucked away on the FAQ amidst much obfuscation (the summation of which reads 'We are making money out of people's naivety): ' It is for-profit currently (see below, why);' he attempts to pre-empt any further such article - 'everyone knows; it's in the FAQ!'
Note this:
9.How are the profits being distributed?
We don't make a big deal out of where the money goes (assuming a net profit), what for, etc. because someone is always going to say, "Well, you should have given x more" or whatever. We feel it is an ethical responsibility to give support if there is a net profit.
It would be nice for members to select their most favorite projects, so that a little democracy could be used... but this feature has to be built into the software.
If the entity were to go nonprofit, we don't know if it would be viable to continue this practice since money is taken from the profits at year end and returned to paying members or used to break even.
Utter bullshit.
It is interesting to not that this is different from the initial sales pitch, where this business got hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free promotion on the basis of 'Spindletop is in the process of becoming the first (and only [this implies GNU affiliation as a worthy cause]) GNU Cooperative [again this implies a not-for-profit site]', and in particular on this totally fraudulent statement (here http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2000/ 11/14/134531/20):
'Money after expenses is donated to the FSF and Debian.'
He's just frantically trying to cover his ass to pre-empt anyone criticizing his shadowy business (which is basically a black hole as far as money goes, in the absence of any requirement for accountability).
AVOID THESE PEOPLE.
Anyone who behaves like this should be given a wide berth.
Why on Earth should it be other users who have to pay for what certain abusers are doing with their broadband connections? If I'm paying the same as them, then there's no way in hell it's fair for me to be basically subsidising their net access.
In this case, running a Quake server is the same as sending out spam. They both waste valuable bandwidth which others are paying for, and neither should be tolerated.
I am not a robot, like you would like me to be. I have a mind, and whats more, I have feelings and emotions that sway and control my body.
Indeed you do, and from the sounds of it, it's a desparate craving for the attention and approval that you never got from your parents. I'm sure you're a hit with the boys aren't you?
Anorexia is not a rational thing, and I, I freely admit, am not a rational girl. Many of my boyfriends have said that that is my most charming feature!
LOL! I bet they do. When men of your age see a girl who so desparately wants to be popular, they know they're in for a good time! Girls like you don't seem to realise that the approval of others is not any way to make yourself feel better, and because of this you'll do anything to make yourself feel wanted.
There's a word for that you know.
But you want to make me a robot, and presumably you would choose one for a wife. Well, I suggest you marry that plastic blow up doll in your cupboard, because you won't get a girl like me, or any girl of spirit!
Unfortunately for you, you're jumping to conclusions, which is a bad thing to do. I am quite happily married with a young son thank you, and my wife is a lovely, intelligent woman who knows what her place in life is and doesn't have any of your issues.
As for spirit, yes I bet you've got "spunk" in bucketfulls.
Not for you perhaps, but I am female. I am judged solely on my looks. I am convinced that it is my looks that have got me my job, my green card and my boyfriend. My looks are an important tool. And intelligent people use all the tools at their disposal!
And when you've only got one tool, it doesn't take any intelligence to realise it's all you can use.
I can see that you don't fit into this category though.
No, I don't fit into your category at all. And thank God for that!
Give me a break. People have been saying that "shiftless and lazy" remark for millenia. If it were true we'd all be immobile by now. Look at the facts; nowadays people work harder than their parents and grandparents did. More children are working at a younger age. More people put in 7 day work weeks. More college students work part- and full-time.
The only thing that kids of today put their efforts into is dealing drugs, getting alcohol and committing crimes. Have you ever lived in one of our cities? The kids there do nothing apart from hang around doing these things, because they've never had any discipline or a good schooling system that encourages team sports and other activities.
We need to move back from the current view that competition is bad, because all it's doing is giving kids nothing better to do than hanging around getting involved in crime.
You have no idea how it hurts me to hear that said. Are you saying that the pain I suffered, the anguish, was all a figment of my imagination? I can assure you it is not invented.
Pain is in the mind, and in your case it was your mind that invented it all. And why? Because you weren't intelligent or strong enough to realise that self-worth does not come from being a carbon copy of Brittany Spears or whichever slut was the icon at that time.
I come from a good looking family, and we have always placed a huge value on looks, especially my mother (the main reason I moved to America). This meant that when I was young and impressionable, and bombarded by media images, I had a false bodymap, and I always though I was fat, even though my weight fell to less than 50 pounds at one stage.
Indeed, it sounds as though your parents shouldn't have been allowed to breed at all, what with their wonderfully modern attitude to their children. Whilst I'm not a fan of eugenics, some people just shouldn't be allowed to breed.
I can assure you that what I went through is not a fiction. It was the most scarring experiance of my life.
And by that statement you convince me your life has been shallow, and that you are nothing but a callow youth with much to learn. Worrying about being fat is not a huge issue in the grand scheme of things, no matter how much it may traumatise your middle-class teenage life.
And drugs helped me a lot, even the recreational ones. Frankly, I just don't understand cynical people like you flatpack.
Cynical? Not really, just experianced.
I can take the flames and the jealousy, and the awful emails and sexual suggestions, but this is too much.
Jealousy? Of a child like you? Bwahahahaha. I think not:)
Does anyone here rememeber the days when America optimistically looked towards the future, confident that we would be able to rise to any challenges and overcome them? No, probably not, because those days are pretty much ancient history now, and the future has become something to be either feared or read about in today's horoscopes.
And at this point in time where computers and the internet are starting to change everything what are we as a nation doing about this? Nothing. Oh sure, we've got the largest percentage of people online in the world (for now) but these are all the people who can easily afford to be online, and who have the education to use a computer. There's nobody working to help out the kids in inner city slums, in the projects and ghettos of modern America. And they're the ones who really need an escape route from the bleakness they live in.
But that's alright for us, as long as we get our shiny new toys everything is alright. I was reading the poll and it seems as though some people have networks in their houses with a dozen computers! How can there be any conceivable need for this many computers in one household? It's all just technolust, and these people would be doing a valuable service to society by donating one of their machines to charities that, despite being chronically underfunded, do try and help the poor get online.
With the current shambolic state of education in many places and the huge lack of opportunities for many people, every little bit we can do helps. Otherwise we'll end up losing out to countries which have social programs to try and help the poor, rather than ignoring them as an inevitable consequence of a small part of the population having vast resources.
Whilst this seems a nice addition to Linux's ever-growing collection of applications, and a great help to those who have physical difficulties in typing, Linux still discriminates against a significant proportion of the population!
But who do you mean, you ask. Well let me tell you, for the many, many people out there who suffer from dyslexia the stubborn insistance of the Linux crowd to stick with their command line interfaces is nothing short of discrimination! I mean, most normal people would have trouble remembering obscure command line syntaxes for commands like "awk" or "grep", but for the dyslexic this is postively a nightmare!
Before we concentrate on adding bloat for some people, maybe we need to concentrate on removing all need for the command line and making sure that directories are named nice, sensible names like "/Configuration" rather than "/etc" and so on. There's no need for this to continue.
So when is /. going to get a decent design?
on
Freshmeat II
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· Score: 4
Nothing personal, but as much as I'm sure that/. looked revolutionary back when it was first designed, it now manages to look clunky and outdated compared to modern sites like kuro5hin. There's just too much in the way of solid blocks of particularly tasteless colours, and the HTML needs to lose the way that everything sits within a single table, making the page so slow to load...
Come on Taco, when you change/. over to Bender are we going to see a site redesign to make it cleaner and more modern looking? It's a real change to give/. a much needed overhaul...
This shouldn't really come as a suprise to anybody who has given serious thought into the problem of time scales in the development of life, or who has read about the experiments in which amino acids can form spontaneously from their components in an electrical field, conditions analogous to those found on primordial Earth.
Hopefully we're now coming to the end of the humanocentric period of our history in which we view life on Earth as something unique, rather than the almost-inevitable consequence of the way the Universe has been ordered. There is nothing special about humanity per se, rather it is Life itself that is the miracle, and findings like this serve to drive home just how amazing it is.
The question of whether or not this means we are alone in the Universe has not really changed, but this discovery makes it more likely life will be found elsewhere in some form. And although I doubt it will happen in my lifetime, I envision a future where humanity discovers life in the most unlikely of places, just as it was meant to be.
Wrong. "Special" does not mean no acceleration. Special Relativity is quite capable of handling acceleration, using a little calculus.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Special relativity applies only to inertial frames, where there is no acceleration. This is the limitation that made Einstein start towards General Relativity. He then came up with the Principle of Equivalence stating that every acceleration has an equivalent gravitational field and vice versa, hence they are the same thing. So yes, special relativity doesn't work in gravitational fields, but this also means it doesn't work for an accelerating frame of reference either.
People who don't bother to read their contracts deserve everything they get. Contract law is a very well established part of any modern democracy, and people who flout it are letting themselves in for a world of trouble. Not having read their contracts is in no way an excuse for breaking them, and no court in the world would think otherwise.
It makes sense for Microsoft to do this. After all, they have a hell of a lot of intellectual property they don't want spread around their competitors, and because they operate in such a broad domain, their potential competition includes a hell of a lot of companies. And no matter what the person intends, the knowledge they've gained on the job will affect how they execute their next jobs.
The moral of this story is to check your contracts before you sign them. I feel kind of sorry for the company involved, but they're probably better off in the long run without the kind of idiot that signs something without reading it first...
Although current proposals like this one are reiduclous and do nothing for anybody apart from record industry fatcats and pop music stars who already earn enough, it would have merit if taken to its ultimate extreme.
Imagine that in return for being taxed on recordable media, computers and hifi and video equipement you were then entitled to watch or listen to whatever you wanted for nothing - the cost would come from the taxes you have paid on the equipment. The RIAA/MPAA wouldn't need to worry about piracy because they'd already be getting the money at the source, and services like Napster would thrive as ways of promoting and distributing music.
This may seem odd, but think about Britain, where they already pay for most of their television content through a license fee (basically a tax really), although I'm invisioning a one-off fee instead at the time of purchase in order to cut down on red tape. It works there - the BBC is renowned worldwide for its high quality programming and services. Why can't this model work for other mediums?
Slashdot Mirror
That should be the case for everyone, but let's face it, it just isn't the case for many in today's self-centred world. As much as we might with it wasn't so, at least at times like Christmas people are reminded to think about someone else other than themselves.
But nowadays even that is being lost under an avalanche of greed; people are using it as a day for getting what they want, and not doing what they can to make others happy.
Are you being serious? Do you really equate caring about things other than possessions with a lack of money? Or vice versa, that having money means that you can suddenly ignore things like decency and happiness? That's a monumentally scary attitude similar to that of sociopaths and other people with serious mental problems.
Please someone tell me that this isn't the common geek attitude around here.
What about intangible things such as goodwill, family and happiness? I know these things are deeply unfashionable to modern corporate consumers in USia, but they're what Christmas is supposed to be about. Whether you believe in God or not, you should be spending time trying to make others happy, not indulging in naked avarice.
I'm sure this is going to get me flamed, but why can't we have more focus on how we can make others happy rather than how we can make ourselves happy, before Christmas truly does become nothing more than Giftmas, the celebration of all things commercial.
Additionally, it is o.k. for a corporation to use their resources in nearly any way they see fit. If they buy a piece of land and then fill it with garbage, it will be difficult to resell, thus providing an economic incentive to not pollute.
If you think that events can be entirely kept separate from each other, then you're suffering from a real ignorance about how the world works my friend. A company could pollute its own land, sure, but to think that there would be no consequences outside of this is naive at best.
It is not "only right" that government ensure fairness.
Why? Are you happy with systems that perpetuate privilige and inequality?
Life isn't "fair" and the exetent of the involvement of government agencies is generally inversely correlated to the amount of "fairness" experienced.
Sure, life isn't fair, but does that mean we should accept that? Isn't that a failure of vision, accepting the worst rather than trying to improve things?
There is no "tyranny of the capitalist elite". Tyranny indicates an "absolute power" which cannot exist. Do the capitalist elite force you to buy their products or services? Do they require you to participate?
When the very essentials of day to day life are controlled by the capitalist elite then yes. Look at how few companies are behind the production of the goods you buy, and tell me there isn't such an elite that are responsible for the staples that millions of people require?
Nobody even requires you to stay in the country!
What a solution! Rather than fixing the system, we can move everybody elsewhere! It's amazing that people are happy to live in a system where you've more chance of bettering yourself by leaving entirely than by playing within the system.
In this "ideal" society, you simply don't enter into any contract which you feel is not a value to you. People value things differently, if you don't want to work for $5.00 per hour, don't. No one is forcing you to.
And if the alternative is death through starvation? Yes, I'm sure your position is "well, you have the choice to accept or not", but a choice between death and whatever contract is offered to you is no choice at all. When you are in this position, any contract is better than death, and in your libertarian wonderland, there is no recourse for people forced into slave labour contracts.
For you to claim that they have a right to life, is to claim that they have a right to have me support their life, which is untrue.
My there's a huge slippery slope...
Their lives are their own responsibility, not mine, and to argue otherwise, well, why don't you just start sending your paychecks to me, 'cause I want 'em, and everyone should get what they want right?
There's a huge difference between the right to life and your strawman. People can't just "get what they want", but they have the right to a minimum standard of living. Any other belief is pure selfishness and inhumane.
Additionally, it is o.k. for a corporation to use their resources in nearly any way they see fit. If they buy a piece of land and then fill it with garbage, it will be difficult to resell, thus providing an economic incentive to not pollute.
If you think that events can be entirely kept separate from each other, then you're suffering from a real ignorance about how the world works my friend. A company could pollute its own land, sure, but to think that there would be no consequences outside of this is naive at best.
It is not "only right" that government ensure fairness.
Why? Are you happy with systems that perpetuate privilige and inequality?
Life isn't "fair" and the exetent of the involvement of government agencies is generally inversely correlated to the amount of "fairness" experienced.
Sure, life isn't fair, but does that mean we should accept that? Isn't that a failure of vision, accepting the worst rather than trying to improve things?
There is no "tyranny of the capitalist elite". Tyranny indicates an "absolute power" which cannot exist. Do the capitalist elite force you to buy their products or services? Do they require you to participate?
When the very essentials of day to day life are controlled by the capitalist elite then yes. Look at how few companies are behind the production of the goods you buy, and tell me there isn't such an elite that are responsible for the staples that millions of people require?
Nobody even requires you to stay in the country!
What a solution! Rather than fixing the system, we can move everybody elsewhere! It's amazing that people are happy to live in a system where you've more chance of bettering yourself by leaving entirely than by playing within the system.
In this "ideal" society, you simply don't enter into any contract which you feel is not a value to you. People value things differently, if you don't want to work for $5.00 per hour, don't. No one is forcing you to.
And if the alternative is death through starvation? Yes, I'm sure your position is "well, you have the choice to accept or not", but a choice between death and whatever contract is offered to you is no choice at all. When you are in this position, any contract is better than death, and in your libertarian wonderland, there is no recourse for people forced into slave labour contracts.
For you to claim that they have a right to life, is to claim that they have a right to have me support their life, which is untrue.
My there's a huge slippery slope...
Their lives are their own responsibility, not mine, and to argue otherwise, well, why don't you just start sending your paychecks to me, 'cause I want 'em, and everyone should get what they want right?
There's a huge difference between the right to life and your strawman. People can't just "get what they want", but they have the right to a minimum standard of living. Any other belief is pure selfishness and inhumane.
I've been corrected by a Randite drone. How awful.
Bullshit! What we need is for people to take responsibility for their own lives.
Since the government represents the people, that's what I was talking about. Still, nice attempt at a strawman.
What is wrong with a corporation deciding how to use its own property?
When that usage is detrimental to people? Or do you believe that corporations are better than people? Oh wait, you probably do if you're spouting Randite crap at me. So it's alright for corporations to pollute then, because it's "how they use their own property"?
Is Budwiser going to start placing Miller Lite ads on it's beer cans? Of course not. But by your argument, the government should step in and force such things to happen.
*sigh* Strawman. Again. Budweiser is not in the advertising business now is it? Since media corporations have such a huge influence on society, it is only right that government ensures their fairness. Just look at the most respected news source on the planet - the BBC. A publicly-run organisation!
Oh, and you forgot to mention "jack-booted thugs" in your tirade.
It is the government's first and foremost duty to protect the constitutional rights of the individual against the tyranny of the majority. Unfortunately, the government has failed at even this.
And equally so, it is their duty to protect the rights of the majority against the tyranny of the capitalist elite. Because since the US is so profit-driven, majority is defined in terms of monetary value, and the "majority" is actually those who control 5% of the population and over half of its wealth.
And yet, the government has failed in this duty, thanks to fools like you that think "wealth creation" is some kind of sacred goal to be valued above all else, even things like human dignity.
Remember that there is no such dichotomy as "human rights" versus "property rights."
Yup, one is worth fighting for, the other is a byproduct of a capitalist society.
No human rights can exist without property rights.
Translation: if you don't own anything, you have no rights. Those that own more, have more rights to do as they please.
Since material goods are produced by the mind and effort of individual men, and are needed to sustain their lives, if the producer does not own the result of his effort, he does not own his life.
In your ideal society, please explain to me how wage slavery would be prevented.
To deny property rights means to turn men into property owned by the state. Whoever claims the "right" to "redistribute" the wealth produced by others is claiming the "right" to treat human beings as chattel.
No, because people have fundamental rights irrespective of whether or not they own property. Only Randroid nuts like you would think otherwise. By your reckoning the homeless, refugees and hunter-gatherer tribes do not have any rights, such as the right to life. What self-serving bullshit.
It's a great philosophy for people with plenty of resources and a lack of empathy for other people. Thankfully, most people aren't that cold.
Especially when so many huge media corporations are merging and taking each other to form such massive conglomerates, a strong government watchdog is needed to prevent these abuses of power. If AOL/Time Warner are allowed to get away with this, then they are basically being allowed to suppress their competition, and what kind of free market supports this? No kind at all.
The free market ideal that American culture reveres is only possible given a lack of monopolies and informed consumers. Here we have the worst of both worlds - a near-monopoly ensuring that consumers are ill-informed! And since other companies are just as bad, the only place we, the people, can turn to is the government. It is their duty to ensure that our needs are put first, rather than those of the corporate warlords.
Unfortunately, I somehow doubt Bush will see it that way. He's all for corporate power and unaccountability - just look at how so much of America's War on Drugs is now persued by private companies unaccountable to the electorate. Remember - you can vote to change your government, but you can't do anything to change a corporation.
Sorry, but there is a big difference in providing services and enslaving people on entitlements. It also is ludicrous to expect people for fork over nearly 1/2 of what they earn to the government.
Did you not understand my comment? Here, I'll repeat the gist of it... I am happy paying these taxes. And once again, if you feel contributing to the welfare of the society that gives so much to you, then go and live elsewhere.
Oh, and if you equate paying tax with enslavement then I suggest you read some history. Specifically, the history of slavery in the US. I think those people would have been happy if their slavery consisted of... paying taxes!
There is no such thing as home ownership or even any ownership.
So you're a hardcore anarchist then? I had you figured for a libertarian what with your delusional rants about slavery and taxation, but if you don't believe in property rights, what rights do you believe in?
I do know what communism is, I also know how it was twisted by a "Government" to fit its need.
So if you know what it is, why did you bring it up with regards to my post other than as a strawman?
Governments no longer serve people, they serve politicians and intrest groups first.
As opposed to corporations, who serve only their bottom line and are less accountable than any government.
As for France, gee, I have yet to read that startling claim. Guess the economies of a few other countries got in the way.
A quick google search brings up this, but I'm sure you'll ignore things like facts.
France is no threat to anyone but themselves, the people are great, their government stinks. Then again that works for here to.
Uh huh. Just out of interest, do you have a small enclave well-stocked with canned goods and ammo, or maybe a manifesto of some kind? Just curious...
And another megacorp gets its way in the crazy world of the USian corporate state. When will people learn that the rampant abuse of power by massive conglomerates is an inevitable slippery slope leading to a police state ruled by corporate warlords?
Napster was a bold venture that stood up to the current regime, allowing people to reclaim their rights in the face of adversary from conglomerates answerable only to their bottom line. And the toothless US government has once again shown that it is nothing other than the tool of the capitalist elite, rather than the defender of the rights of the majority.
I hear a lot about the tragedy of the commons with respect to government. But today we have the exact reverse - the tragedy of the elite. No longer does the majority have its way, instead the chosen few dictate the future of millions through their control over every essential resource.
And anyone that thinks that art is not essential to the well-being of a society is missing one of the wonders of humanity. Unfortunately, when art is subverted to serve the capitalist rulers, humanity suffers as a result.
Why is that you twits never bitch about the fact that government tax the piss out of you yet bitch and moan about some evil corporation.
Why would I bitch about taxes, when I fully agree that they are needed in order to provide essential services that allows those who don't have the same resources as I do? Unlike the so-called libertarians here on /. I fully accept that by living in a society, I have a moral obligation to other members of that society. I don't selfishly expect to reap the benefits whilst giving nothing in return.
Don't buy their product and the corp ain't really going to care. Don't buy into the government line, or send them your tax money and your in jail.
Don't buy into the government line? Move to another country. By living here you accept the social contract.
HELLO. Slight screw up in priorities mr. commie
Oh how sad. Name calling. And an ad hominem attack as well. Boo-fucking-hoo, I'm devastated.
And next time, learn what communism actually means before using it as an insult, okay?
BTW - free market is millions and millions times better than the crap that tanked the former Soviet. (let alone the crap tanking Europeans now - socialist governments are expensive and stifling)
Which is of course why France has the world's fastest growing economy. And where did the USSR enter into the conversation, other than as a strawman for you to attack?
Bullshit. This is exactly why a free market is good.
Because it allows a company to get to a position where they have the majority of people to be convinced that Microsoft == PC? That there is no alternative to Windows? Right...
Because we are free to use non-MS software. If it wasn't a free market, MS or some government sanctioned software company would be the only choice... and all things GNU, GPLed, Open Source, etc would not exist.
Nonsense. If the market were decently regulated then there would be more competition because no company would have such a huge monopoly. Other groups would have a far easier time having their OS accepted. Witness how BeOS sunk, despite having a technically superior OS to both Windows and Linux.
As if we needed any more examples of the rampant excesses that the supposed "free" market has bought us in the last century (and before, as the comment about the East India Company points out).
Time and time again, we see that corporations become large enough to strangle anything even resembling free trade, and that without a strong government to regulate them, a corporate dictatorship ensues, in which a coporations control over vital commodities gives them immense power over the lives of the proletariat.
I was pleased when I saw that the DOJ had finally moved to block the excesses of Microsoft's reign of terror over the computing industry, but in this new regime Gates and co have friends in the highest of places, all to willing to let "market forces" and the "invisible hand" determine the future.
Let me tell you, the invisible hand will bloody its knuckles against the hard rock of Microsoft's monopoly, to no effect.
Only by ensuring the market is tamed by regulations and a strong government can these kinds of abuses be tamed. A free market is not an unregulated libertarian paradise, for the only freedom that gives is the freedom to abuse. In an unregulated market, it is simply a race to gain the greatest market share, followed by a systematic procession to monopoly and corporate domination.
US corporations are famous for their abuses of power, especially against countries that cannot afford the resources necessary to combat them. And with corporate frontmen like Bush in charge, you can expect to see more government operations designed to allow US corporations to "increase profitability" through the exploitation of the poor and vulnerable.
> They are selling them here for less than $2500 and all proceeds are being used toward Spindl3top going nonprofit. Since Spindl3top and the FSF have joined hands (first mentioned here by Lucas) to create the official, noncommercial GNU hardware/free software database, this is a very important cause IMHO."
0 1/ 2/21/19441/2905, in particular the thread by 'spiers'.
1 /19441/2905&cid=38#38 to an ad (http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory&sid=2001 /2/21/19441/2905) for his business), it got dumped because it was essentially speculation. I had a very strong suspicion that they were running a profit-making enterprise, but from the goodwill it got from naive story posts in slashdot (not that you could truly expect any kind of integrity or checking of stories from them) it was masquerarding as a charity.
/ 11/14/134531/20):
Be very careful of these people.
There whole operation is based on a massive deceit.
Please read this:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory&sid=20
Please also note this:
>Look at the furious back-pedalling at
>
>http://www.spindl3top.org/faq.php
That's very true. When I wrote my article on k5 originally (reposted here http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=comments&sid=2001/2/2
They did confirm that eventually:
me>Why doesn't the site say who is profiting from it?
reply> As of now? Nobody. Lucas has sunk some of his savings into it, which he does hope to recoup.
Which is otherwise known as a business. You invest money in the hope of getting more back.
Although:
Michael Leutenberg:
> I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this. The FSF is one of the organizations that will be donated to; once spindletop has money to do donations.
uh huh
whereas:
Lucas:
> Give me a break, what will my crap pocketchange per video card or whatever do for the FSF? Nothing. They get a lot of money from other places, grants or whatever.
hmm.
I did intend to write another article from the firmer basis: this is a business but people are under the false impression it's a charity, but sadly my indolence took over. By making this 'plain', tucked away on the FAQ amidst much obfuscation (the summation of which reads 'We are making money out of people's naivety): ' It is for-profit currently (see below, why);' he attempts to pre-empt any further such article - 'everyone knows; it's in the FAQ!'
Note this:
9.How are the profits being distributed?
We don't make a big deal out of where the money goes (assuming a net profit), what for, etc. because someone is always going to say, "Well, you should have given x more" or whatever. We feel it is an ethical responsibility to give support if there is a net profit.
It would be nice for members to select their most favorite projects, so that a little democracy could be used... but this feature has to be built into the software.
If the entity were to go nonprofit, we don't know if it would be viable to continue this practice since money is taken from the profits at year end and returned to paying members or used to break even.
Utter bullshit.
It is interesting to not that this is different from the initial sales pitch, where this business got hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free promotion on the basis of 'Spindletop is in the process of becoming the first (and only [this implies GNU affiliation as a worthy cause]) GNU Cooperative [again this implies a not-for-profit site]', and in particular on this totally fraudulent statement (here http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2000
'Money after expenses is donated to the FSF and Debian.'
He's just frantically trying to cover his ass to pre-empt anyone criticizing his shadowy business (which is basically a black hole as far as money goes, in the absence of any requirement for accountability).
AVOID THESE PEOPLE.
Anyone who behaves like this should be given a wide berth.
Why on Earth should it be other users who have to pay for what certain abusers are doing with their broadband connections? If I'm paying the same as them, then there's no way in hell it's fair for me to be basically subsidising their net access.
In this case, running a Quake server is the same as sending out spam. They both waste valuable bandwidth which others are paying for, and neither should be tolerated.
I am not a robot, like you would like me to be. I have a mind, and whats more, I have feelings and emotions that sway and control my body.
Indeed you do, and from the sounds of it, it's a desparate craving for the attention and approval that you never got from your parents. I'm sure you're a hit with the boys aren't you?
Anorexia is not a rational thing, and I, I freely admit, am not a rational girl. Many of my boyfriends have said that that is my most charming feature!
LOL! I bet they do. When men of your age see a girl who so desparately wants to be popular, they know they're in for a good time! Girls like you don't seem to realise that the approval of others is not any way to make yourself feel better, and because of this you'll do anything to make yourself feel wanted.
There's a word for that you know.
But you want to make me a robot, and presumably you would choose one for a wife. Well, I suggest you marry that plastic blow up doll in your cupboard, because you won't get a girl like me, or any girl of spirit!
Unfortunately for you, you're jumping to conclusions, which is a bad thing to do. I am quite happily married with a young son thank you, and my wife is a lovely, intelligent woman who knows what her place in life is and doesn't have any of your issues.
As for spirit, yes I bet you've got "spunk" in bucketfulls.
Not for you perhaps, but I am female. I am judged solely on my looks. I am convinced that it is my looks that have got me my job, my green card and my boyfriend. My looks are an important tool. And intelligent people use all the tools at their disposal!
And when you've only got one tool, it doesn't take any intelligence to realise it's all you can use.
I can see that you don't fit into this category though.
No, I don't fit into your category at all. And thank God for that!
Give me a break. People have been saying that "shiftless and lazy" remark for millenia. If it were true we'd all be immobile by now. Look at the facts; nowadays people work harder than their parents and grandparents did. More children are working at a younger age. More people put in 7 day work weeks. More college students work part- and full-time.
The only thing that kids of today put their efforts into is dealing drugs, getting alcohol and committing crimes. Have you ever lived in one of our cities? The kids there do nothing apart from hang around doing these things, because they've never had any discipline or a good schooling system that encourages team sports and other activities.
We need to move back from the current view that competition is bad, because all it's doing is giving kids nothing better to do than hanging around getting involved in crime.
You have no idea how it hurts me to hear that said. Are you saying that the pain I suffered, the anguish, was all a figment of my imagination? I can assure you it is not invented.
Pain is in the mind, and in your case it was your mind that invented it all. And why? Because you weren't intelligent or strong enough to realise that self-worth does not come from being a carbon copy of Brittany Spears or whichever slut was the icon at that time.
I come from a good looking family, and we have always placed a huge value on looks, especially my mother (the main reason I moved to America). This meant that when I was young and impressionable, and bombarded by media images, I had a false bodymap, and I always though I was fat, even though my weight fell to less than 50 pounds at one stage.
Indeed, it sounds as though your parents shouldn't have been allowed to breed at all, what with their wonderfully modern attitude to their children. Whilst I'm not a fan of eugenics, some people just shouldn't be allowed to breed.
I can assure you that what I went through is not a fiction. It was the most scarring experiance of my life.
And by that statement you convince me your life has been shallow, and that you are nothing but a callow youth with much to learn. Worrying about being fat is not a huge issue in the grand scheme of things, no matter how much it may traumatise your middle-class teenage life.
And drugs helped me a lot, even the recreational ones. Frankly, I just don't understand cynical people like you flatpack.
Cynical? Not really, just experianced.
I can take the flames and the jealousy, and the awful emails and sexual suggestions, but this is too much.
Jealousy? Of a child like you? Bwahahahaha. I think not :)
Do you really need a dozen? And it's not like they can say that they're testing it with different systems, many of them were duplicates...
Does anyone here rememeber the days when America optimistically looked towards the future, confident that we would be able to rise to any challenges and overcome them? No, probably not, because those days are pretty much ancient history now, and the future has become something to be either feared or read about in today's horoscopes.
And at this point in time where computers and the internet are starting to change everything what are we as a nation doing about this? Nothing. Oh sure, we've got the largest percentage of people online in the world (for now) but these are all the people who can easily afford to be online, and who have the education to use a computer. There's nobody working to help out the kids in inner city slums, in the projects and ghettos of modern America. And they're the ones who really need an escape route from the bleakness they live in.
But that's alright for us, as long as we get our shiny new toys everything is alright. I was reading the poll and it seems as though some people have networks in their houses with a dozen computers! How can there be any conceivable need for this many computers in one household? It's all just technolust, and these people would be doing a valuable service to society by donating one of their machines to charities that, despite being chronically underfunded, do try and help the poor get online.
With the current shambolic state of education in many places and the huge lack of opportunities for many people, every little bit we can do helps. Otherwise we'll end up losing out to countries which have social programs to try and help the poor, rather than ignoring them as an inevitable consequence of a small part of the population having vast resources.
Whilst this seems a nice addition to Linux's ever-growing collection of applications, and a great help to those who have physical difficulties in typing, Linux still discriminates against a significant proportion of the population!
But who do you mean, you ask. Well let me tell you, for the many, many people out there who suffer from dyslexia the stubborn insistance of the Linux crowd to stick with their command line interfaces is nothing short of discrimination! I mean, most normal people would have trouble remembering obscure command line syntaxes for commands like "awk" or "grep", but for the dyslexic this is postively a nightmare!
Before we concentrate on adding bloat for some people, maybe we need to concentrate on removing all need for the command line and making sure that directories are named nice, sensible names like "/Configuration" rather than "/etc" and so on. There's no need for this to continue.
Nothing personal, but as much as I'm sure that /. looked revolutionary back when it was first designed, it now manages to look clunky and outdated compared to modern sites like kuro5hin. There's just too much in the way of solid blocks of particularly tasteless colours, and the HTML needs to lose the way that everything sits within a single table, making the page so slow to load...
Come on Taco, when you change /. over to Bender are we going to see a site redesign to make it cleaner and more modern looking? It's a real change to give /. a much needed overhaul...
This shouldn't really come as a suprise to anybody who has given serious thought into the problem of time scales in the development of life, or who has read about the experiments in which amino acids can form spontaneously from their components in an electrical field, conditions analogous to those found on primordial Earth.
Hopefully we're now coming to the end of the humanocentric period of our history in which we view life on Earth as something unique, rather than the almost-inevitable consequence of the way the Universe has been ordered. There is nothing special about humanity per se, rather it is Life itself that is the miracle, and findings like this serve to drive home just how amazing it is.
The question of whether or not this means we are alone in the Universe has not really changed, but this discovery makes it more likely life will be found elsewhere in some form. And although I doubt it will happen in my lifetime, I envision a future where humanity discovers life in the most unlikely of places, just as it was meant to be.
Wrong. "Special" does not mean no acceleration. Special Relativity is quite capable of handling acceleration, using a little calculus.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Special relativity applies only to inertial frames, where there is no acceleration. This is the limitation that made Einstein start towards General Relativity. He then came up with the Principle of Equivalence stating that every acceleration has an equivalent gravitational field and vice versa, hence they are the same thing. So yes, special relativity doesn't work in gravitational fields, but this also means it doesn't work for an accelerating frame of reference either.
People who don't bother to read their contracts deserve everything they get. Contract law is a very well established part of any modern democracy, and people who flout it are letting themselves in for a world of trouble. Not having read their contracts is in no way an excuse for breaking them, and no court in the world would think otherwise.
It makes sense for Microsoft to do this. After all, they have a hell of a lot of intellectual property they don't want spread around their competitors, and because they operate in such a broad domain, their potential competition includes a hell of a lot of companies. And no matter what the person intends, the knowledge they've gained on the job will affect how they execute their next jobs.
The moral of this story is to check your contracts before you sign them. I feel kind of sorry for the company involved, but they're probably better off in the long run without the kind of idiot that signs something without reading it first...
Although current proposals like this one are reiduclous and do nothing for anybody apart from record industry fatcats and pop music stars who already earn enough, it would have merit if taken to its ultimate extreme.
Imagine that in return for being taxed on recordable media, computers and hifi and video equipement you were then entitled to watch or listen to whatever you wanted for nothing - the cost would come from the taxes you have paid on the equipment. The RIAA/MPAA wouldn't need to worry about piracy because they'd already be getting the money at the source, and services like Napster would thrive as ways of promoting and distributing music.
This may seem odd, but think about Britain, where they already pay for most of their television content through a license fee (basically a tax really), although I'm invisioning a one-off fee instead at the time of purchase in order to cut down on red tape. It works there - the BBC is renowned worldwide for its high quality programming and services. Why can't this model work for other mediums?