Some artists like Dr. Dre, Eminem, Metalicca are very opposed to piracy, and p2p in general. You have other artists like Prince, KRS-1, Tribe called Quest, who are all for it. The question is, why are you in the game? Are you in the for the love of the music or the love of money?
I don't think anyone argues that the artists should be compensated for their work. But there is this huge, controlling middleman between the artists and the public who compensates them. The artists who are against online music (let's not call it piracy, more on that later) are against it because they believe, or have been lead to believe, that it threatens their livelihood. It doesn't.
The only reason online music is considered piracy is because of the business model of the music industry. If CDs were available for a reasonable price, there wouldn't be as much incentive to copy and distribute music online. But beyond that, it is obvious that being able to download music is popular. Why not embrace it? Most artists make their money from touring anyway, because their contracts with the record company gives most of their royalties away. So they have to tour to make money. How is this different than giving the music away, and still making money on touring and merchandise? Or special edition CDs with extra features?
It is painfully obvious that online music could be a huge business, but the record companies refuse to acknowledge that because they fear it. They should embrace it! If it is so easy for average music fans to make digital copies of music, why is it so hard for them to do it and still make money? It isn't, they are just stupid , power-hungry, greedy bastards.
I don't care if this gets modded as flamebait or troll, it is the truth.
I have to wonder if the artists who are supporting this ACTUALLY believe it, or if their record company is forcing them to do it. After all, they are indentured servants, they do what they are told. if they aren't being forced, I'll bet the company has bombarded them with FUD until they actually start to believe it. I can see the record company telling them all about how they need to change the contract for this new "piracy" fee that is stealing all their money. Phbbt. Fine, let the music industry go down the tubes, I don't really care.
Isn't this contest illegal under the DMCA?
on
RC5-64 Success
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· Score: 2
Wouldn't a contest like this be illegal under the DMCA? True, the company sponsored the contest, and asked that you try to break it, but technically speaking, couldn't they be prosecuted for it? It was for research, but the DMCA is so vaguely worded that I think that this contest was illegal.
Why don't you e-mail RMS to tell him what you just wrote?
I emailed it to gnu@gnu.org before I posted it here. That is the address at the bottom of the FAQ for comments, so that is what I used. I have to think that RedHat et al have already had this suggested to them, but you never know.
Excuse me? How exactly did GNU fail? Look at what they have created.
From the FAQ: We developed programs such as GCC, GNU Emacs, GAS, GLIBC, BASH, etc., because we needed them for the GNU operating system. GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection is the compiler that we wrote for the GNU operating system. We developed Ghostscript, GNUCash, GNU Chess and GNOME for the GNU system too.
If that is failure, I hope to fail someday.
To the point of the FAQ, I agree with pretty much everything that is pointed out. It SHOULD be called GNU/Linux, technically. But unfortunately, words change meanings and it doesn't seem that there is much you can do about it. Hackers used to be considered a good thing, now you can get jailed for it (even though it is technically cracking). Pirates used to murder and plunder, but now it someone who listens to MP3s or forwards over commercials on their TiVO.
The top ten list wasn't about the most influential physics experiments. It was about the most beautiful - the moment of clarity experiments. The article explained that at the beginning. I am sure that if they polled the same people and had them come up with the most influential experiments, the list would come out a little different.
I find it terribly amusing how for years the open-source community has used the larger number of holes found in Windows systems as one of their arguments against it. Yet now when the open-source community is also plagued with the same thing the comments tend to be along the line of 'Windows still sux.' and 'Do you know how much you're hurting the open-source movement? Please stop.'
Seems to me like older anti-MS comments are coming around and biting people in the ass.
Hardly. The inability to properly admin a system is biting them in the ass. The comments to Microsoft sucking when it comes to security still apply. When someone says that Linux is more secure than Windows, that is not saying it is perfect. Nobody in their right mind would say that any OS is totally secure. The difference is, it is a Linux community. People who find exploits should alert the community before releasing the information in the wild. The same applies to Windows, Microsoft should be alerted to the problem well before everyone else is. The difference is, the Open Source community will quickly patch it, Microsoft will do whatever they want to do.
There is nothing wrong with yelling at people about keeping their systems up to date. It is just bad practice to not keep up with patches. With Open Source, you can do that - with Windows, you can only do that if Microsoft provides you with patches. The OSS community has absolutely no say in how MS decides to handle vulnerabilities, but we do have a voice in our own community.
And if you think a worm or two means that now Linux is catching up to MS in the number of vulnerabilities, you are living in a dream world. Plagued? Please. At least the OSS community isn't delusional and says "there are no bugs".
Well, car-mods often are actually illegal. There are a number that are not, but a lot of the high perofrmance or really radicailly different looking mods don't pass various state and local laws.
I was using the previous poster's analogy, I agree it isn't the best. Modding your car may violate several STATE laws, and those laws are in place for safety or environmental reasons. They aren't in place in order to benefit the car manufacturer.
Now, great, I am all for hacking or moding the XBox, but if something goes wrong, it's your fault, and MS has nothing to do with it. Don't blame them for putting DRM in the box, or anything like that. Blame you for not listening to thier warnings about what could happen if you mod it.
See, you were on the verge of making sense, until this part. If it were left at "if you hack the XBox, you void your warranty" that would be fine. If you are modding something, you don't care about the warranty. By putting DRM into the XBox, they are making it ILLEGAL to mod it. THAT is wrong. If you buy something, you have every right to mod it. You shouldn't expect support for it, but you have the right to mod it. Car makers don't care if you mod your car, but don't come crying to them if something goes wrong. They aren't trying to make it illegal to put aftermarket parts on your car. Microsoft is trying to make it ILLEGAL to modify a product that you (supposedly) own. This is precisely why Digital Restriction Management is wrong and bad for everyone except big companies.
I see. So the meaning of the word hacker can be changed because of popular use, but you cling to the word cracker as racist slang. I see where priorities are.
And the use of the word hacker was in nation-wide usage in the 1980's? I really really doubt that. If it was in use, it was most certainly underground and not in mainstream media in any great capacity.
People who break into computer systems often identify themselves as "hackers". The politically correct thing to do is to allow them to self-identify.
Really? Hmm, I don't know anyone who breaks into computer systems who writes for the NY Times, or the Chicago Tribune, or any other major media outlet. Or are you telling me that all of the stories about "hackers" over the past decade have sources in the illegal hacker community? Interesting. Or maybe just BS. Do you honestly think that people reporting on people who break into computers ask them what they consider themselves to be?
Gee, so you consider yourself to be more educated about this issue than me, whooptie-do. You seem to be quite pleased to point it out, as an Anonymous Coward. I would think that such an educated person wouldn't stoop to the level of petty insults, no matter how cleverly and intellectually they try to phrase them. There is always going to be someone who is more educated in this or that. But it seems that no matter how smart some people claim to be, they can't resist the urge to act like an asshole.
Hope you feel educated after reading this.
Oh yes, great master, your vague references to "factual" events has greatly educated me. May I go now?
There is no distinction between the terms "hacker" and "cracker" anymore. Hacker means what the general population thinks it means. Face it: language changes and evolves. This is just another example of that evolution.
This may be true, but I refuse to use the term incorrectly when I know better. Please read the following. I did not write it, it is from someone on a mailing list, when someone misused the term "hacker", then argued that it was the accepted use of the word. The author puts it better than I ever could. (you can view the original post to the list here
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If you haven't already, read Orwell's "1984".
The use of words is absolutey critical, and using language for social
engineering by governments, churches, and corporations is not the stuff of
science fiction... just ask anyone who works in marketing. It happens every
day, and the deleterious effects on our society and our world which result
are trivial to see. (ponder the definition of the word 'terrorist' and how
fluid it has become, and the real, physical consiquences which are apparent
and resulting in no small part from the misuse and mutation of that word)
Now think to yourself: Who owns the rights to every dictionary in circulation
(Merriem-Webster, Oxford, what have you)?
That's right, the publishers. Organizations that have been members of the
copyright cartel since the sixteenth century, a cartel which in its history
had at least one person drawn and quartered for possessing a printing press
and not being a member of the cartel.
With respect to the word 'hacker' it is highly debatable whether the misuse of
the term was deliberately and knowingly inserted into the dictionary as a
form of semantic engineering, or whether the publishers simply picked up on
the misuse of the term being promoted and propogated by another copyright
cartel: the entertainment cartel.
The same applies to the word 'piracy,' though poking through some very early
dictionaries certainly suggests its definition was changed as part of a
conscious effort at semantic engineering (the incorrect, propoganda
definition of the word equating copyright violators with rapists, pillagers,
and murderers on the high seas was in at least one dictionary long before
misuse of the word had become widespread).
What is known for certain is that, for other words of political significance,
dictionaries have been known to publich definitions adhering to one political
agenda or another PRIOR to their widespread use in language. The "authority"
of the dictionary has been used, more than once, to deliberately modify and
change the use of language to promote a political agenda.
If you're really interested in such things, look up the history of the usage
of the word 'he' and 'his' as a gender-neutral or gender-indeterminate
pronoun. In the United States, the use of 'they' and 'their' (singular) was
in widespread use around the turn of the 20th century. Grammaticians
displaced that, deliberately, with 'he' and 'his'. One of the comments made
by one of these early 'semantic engineers' was something to the effect of
"as in nature, when there is a choice, the male pronoune shall dominate." It
is only in recent years that the use of 'they' and 'their' (singular) as a
gender-neutral pronoun has come back into use, despite the linguistic
orthodoxy to the contrary.
There are other examples, indeed a plethora of them from the cold war and even
the war on drugs.
In other words, blind faith in the dictionary is as misplaced as blind faith
in anything else (e.g. religion, government, or McDonald's). The publishers
have as many ulterior motives, and as unreliable ethics in persuing those
motives, as every other industry has come to have.
You misused the word 'hacker' on a mailing list of people who know better.
You were corrected, you have been educated, and your response is to call
everyone a hypocrit.
A community of hackers, in the old and august meaning of the word, is not at
all hypocrictical for being annoyed with you for misusing the term and
equating them to a bunch of petty criminals, any more than a person of a
particular ethnicity, who stands for freedom, is a hypocrit for being angry
when another group deliberately denigrates them. Or, put another way,
fighting speech with speech is not the same as advocating censorship, and you
should recognize the difference.
Frankly, you should drop the attitude, admit you made a mistake, and move on.
Everyone makes mistakes... that is part of life. Clinging to them out of
stubbornness, however, is just silly.
Before broadband:
People must be crazy to spend $50 a month for internet access. I pay $12 for dial up, I can check my email while at work, and I have no good reason to get DSL. I just use email and surf a little.
After broadband:
I can't believe everyone doesn't have this! It is awesome, and worth every penny. Now my wife and I can both be on at the same time. We can check out what movies are playing without having to wait through a 10 minute moviefone advertisement call. No need to tune in to the annoying local news to get the weather. Pay bills online. Shopping. Games. Home web server to share pictures with out of town family and friends.
If you have it, you will use it. Always on is the best aspect of it, and I get fast speeds too. It is nice to be the LPB sometimes.:-)
Re:Dual NIC (overkill for a firewall)
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Tiny Boxen
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· Score: 2
For firewall use, I would like to see dual NICs.
They would make great IDS nodes.
$300 bucks is a pretty good deal for a computer that small with that amount of proc power.
Do you need that much processing power for a firewall? I run mine with a P166, and I don't see any issues. I doubt the CPU gets utilized much at all. It is quiet, doesn't take much power, and isn't too large. And it cost a lot less than $300.:-)
I am not ragging on your post, just that I wouldn't consider this a good firewall, it seems like more power than is necessary. There are off-the-shelf firewalls smaller and less powerful.
I submitted this story Friday morning, when the story came out in other news sources, and it was rejected. So either the editors select who they accept stories from, or they have a 1.5 day backlog of stories.
- All inquiries regarding patron records are to be referred to library administration. - No information will be provided without appropriate warrants and/or court orders.
- Before any search for information begins the library has the right to have an attorney examine any/all warrants and/or court orders to determine their validity, jurisdiction, and all other aspects of legal standing.
- The library, through its attorney has the right to additional judicial ruling on potentially suspect or questionable documentation before any search begins. (Right of appeal)
- The library has the right to have its attorney present at all times when any search activities are carried out.
This all sounds well and good, and may have a nice appearance. However, "having the right" to have an attorney do all these things and actually doing it are two different things.
Administration takes care of all issues, and if they so choose, may have an attorney step in. But that doesn't mean they will. If you were an administrator, and the FBI showed up with a warrant, what would you do? It takes some balls to stand up to them and say "No, I am going to have to contact an attorney". Good for you if you could do it, but I doubt most would.
What it all comes down to is the fact we need to test these things rather than repeating the same thing for the past 30 years that IS NOT working. Yes, change hurts, but sometimes it is necessary.
Sorry, but this is BS. You can't say that the advice given by health professionals for the last 30 years isn't working, if NOBODY LISTENS TO THEM. I am not talking about the "breaking" studies you hear about on the stupid nightly news that says "eggs are bad" one week, and "eggs are good" the next. I am talking about a balanced diet.
You know what the problem is? Americans are lazy. American companies know this, and cater to it. (I am a born and raised American, BTW). Why do you think we have every conceivable convenience food in the store? Even things like chicken comes pre-cooked and cut up (complete with simulated grill marks on it). Everything is pre-packaged so you can just "heat and eat". It used to be just that way for kids, but now they are gearing it towards the family. It is pathetic.
I recently talked to a coworker who had been trying to lose weight. He was on an Atkins-like diet as prescribed by his doctor. He went off of it after a few weeks, and resumed smoking. Then he told me he had come up with his own diet - a gallon of water, and one meal a day. (atrocious idea of a diet) As he was telling me about this, at around 10:00 AM, he was buying a bag of chips out of the vending machine. I had nothing to say.
Now if people have been following the widely accepted recommended diet for the last 30 years, and it hasn't been working, then I would agree it is time to reevaluate it. But the FACT is, people don't follow the recommended diet. How many servings of fruits and vegetables did you have yesterday? Do you know how many are recommended? When I hear strong arguments for something, I always go back to the root of the argument and check the underlying assumption. Yours is that everyone has been eating a balanced diet for the last 30 years, and are still becoming obese. I think that argument is flawed.
I am 5'11", 175 and I work out at least 2 times a week. When there is a birthday at work, people will say "Come on, have a piece of cake, you're skinny". So I may have a small piece, as they sit there and eat one 3x the size of mine, joking "this is low fat, right? ha ha ha". People are lazy and in denial. I seriously wonder what the hell has happened to common sense.
Have you ever seen people from other countries? They lead different lifestyles. They don't have obesity problems like we do in the US. And I have observed that people who move here and stick to their way of life and diet don't fall into our obesity trap. Others do. And now the Western influence is creeping (or charging, rather) into other countries, and they are starting to see some weight problems emerge in their countries. What irks me is that we have no excuse. We have every advantage in the US, and we still can't seem to get it right. We are run by corporations who greedily feed on our laziness and apathy. But we let them.
Touche. But I really do know how to spell it. I don't think it is wrong to misspell a word (or even have a typo, which a lot of people mistake for misspellings). It happens, that is just a mistake. However, to continuously misuse words like contractions (they're, you're) is not the same thing. How can you look at "you're" (the apostrophe is there for a reason - it is in place of "a"), see that it means "you are" and STILL use it incorrectly? There is no excuse for that except for laziness. Now if you type "thier" instead of "their", big deal.
I find this interesting, because it seems like this is just a temporary violation. They distributed their beta with an NDA, but it is assumed that once they go GA with it, there will be no NDA and the source will be available.
Yes, releasing a closed-beta seems to be in violation of the GPL, but how else would you do it? If you created some software, and you wanted to just give it to a few select people for evaluation, you couldn't do it under the GPL. Distribution is distribution, and you must allow them to re-distribute it. This seems like a flaw to me. This assumes, of course, that you are planning to "officially" release it at a later date under full compliance of the GPL. Hmm, anyone have an answer to this?
Quick question, I don't own a Tivo or HDTV but if you were to record an HDTV broadcast would it not require more HD space? Would this not better quality be a better use than more recording time?
By the time HDTV is in wide use, we'll probably have terabyte drives on our desktops.:-)
But in reality, I would rather have the quantity instead of the quality. I mean, this is TV after all. Is there anything worth watching in high-definition? My friend has his TiVO networked throughout his house, and he has a 61" Mitsubishi HDTV set, and it is awesome. He gets some HDTV broadcasts, and he said you can really tell the difference. But in my mind, it isn't worth it. TV just isn't that interesting to me most of the time. What advantage do I get watching Iron Chef in high def? Now Blue Planet on the Discovery Channel would be incredible. But at this point, to choose between capacity or quality, I would go with capacity. In general, stations broadcast more crap instead of good programs. So if you are really that into TV you probably have many different shows you want to watch.
But then again, I don't even have a TiVO. And watching the Simpsons on DVD is weird, it is too crisp and clean. The poor broadcast quality of Fox adds some charm to it.:-)
There are too many children today who will spit out a piece of work then spell check it, rather than learning to spell the word in the first place.
Children!? How about adults? Kids are in the learning process, but there are way more adults who can't spell to save their ass. I can understand if you aren't very educated, buy many times they're college graduates. You're not going to impress me by your inability to use proper English spelling and grammer just because you're lazy and refuse to learn it.
Please note the proper use of their/there/they're and your/you're in the previous paragraph. And comments like "you know what I meant" or "don't be so nitpicky" don't fly. It is really sad when people whose first language isn't English can use the language as well or better than "native" speakers. This isn't difficult stuff.
What is up with all the negative articles on MS Hardware?
Take a look at your mouse! Have you ever used an MS Joystick?
Sure, lots of you have complaints with MS's OS's. Some of you hate the whole "Major Corportation" thing.
But, damnit, MS MAKES GOOD HARDWARE!
I've used MS Mice, and MS Sidewinders for YEARS and they still work GREAT!
Sorry, keyboards, mice, and joysticks don't control your data. Bottom line is I don't trust Microsoft - for very good reasons. They have continuously proved they are untrustworthy, before/during/after being found guilty of illegal monopolistic practices by the Department of Justice. I don't trust them - not because I am some zealot - but because they have proven over and over again that I have no reason to trust them.
Yes, I use one of their mice, because a. it is a good product
b. it doesn't have anything to do with security
Microsoft sucks at security, they even admit that their products aren't engineered for security. Sure, that was in reference to their Operating Systems, but do you think they will suddenly see the light when it comes to hardware? Microsoft is crafty, they wouldn't be getting into networking hardware at this stage of the game just for the sake of doing it. There is a reason, and they are trying to weasel their way in to gain control. Period.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think anyone argues that the artists should be compensated for their work. But there is this huge, controlling middleman between the artists and the public who compensates them. The artists who are against online music (let's not call it piracy, more on that later) are against it because they believe, or have been lead to believe, that it threatens their livelihood. It doesn't.
The only reason online music is considered piracy is because of the business model of the music industry. If CDs were available for a reasonable price, there wouldn't be as much incentive to copy and distribute music online. But beyond that, it is obvious that being able to download music is popular. Why not embrace it? Most artists make their money from touring anyway, because their contracts with the record company gives most of their royalties away. So they have to tour to make money. How is this different than giving the music away, and still making money on touring and merchandise? Or special edition CDs with extra features?
It is painfully obvious that online music could be a huge business, but the record companies refuse to acknowledge that because they fear it. They should embrace it! If it is so easy for average music fans to make digital copies of music, why is it so hard for them to do it and still make money? It isn't, they are just stupid , power-hungry, greedy bastards.
I don't care if this gets modded as flamebait or troll, it is the truth.
I have to wonder if the artists who are supporting this ACTUALLY believe it, or if their record company is forcing them to do it. After all, they are indentured servants, they do what they are told. if they aren't being forced, I'll bet the company has bombarded them with FUD until they actually start to believe it. I can see the record company telling them all about how they need to change the contract for this new "piracy" fee that is stealing all their money. Phbbt. Fine, let the music industry go down the tubes, I don't really care.
Wouldn't a contest like this be illegal under the DMCA? True, the company sponsored the contest, and asked that you try to break it, but technically speaking, couldn't they be prosecuted for it? It was for research, but the DMCA is so vaguely worded that I think that this contest was illegal.
I think Lynx predates Mosaic. While Mosaic was the first GUI web browser, I think Lynx came first.
I emailed it to gnu@gnu.org before I posted it here. That is the address at the bottom of the FAQ for comments, so that is what I used. I have to think that RedHat et al have already had this suggested to them, but you never know.
How come you haven't talked to Red Hat and other companies about changing their references?
Surely posting a FAQ on a website may get a few people to change, but getting Red Hat to call it Red Hat GNU/Linux would be HUGE.
But still, a large portion of many distros are GNU stuff, and some very important pieces at that. I don't think it is wrong to ask for some credit.
Excuse me? How exactly did GNU fail? Look at what they have created.
From the FAQ:
We developed programs such as GCC, GNU Emacs, GAS, GLIBC, BASH, etc., because we needed them for the GNU operating system. GCC, the GNU Compiler Collection is the compiler that we wrote for the GNU operating system. We developed Ghostscript, GNUCash, GNU Chess and GNOME for the GNU system too.
If that is failure, I hope to fail someday.
To the point of the FAQ, I agree with pretty much everything that is pointed out. It SHOULD be called GNU/Linux, technically. But unfortunately, words change meanings and it doesn't seem that there is much you can do about it. Hackers used to be considered a good thing, now you can get jailed for it (even though it is technically cracking). Pirates used to murder and plunder, but now it someone who listens to MP3s or forwards over commercials on their TiVO.
The top ten list wasn't about the most influential physics experiments. It was about the most beautiful - the moment of clarity experiments. The article explained that at the beginning. I am sure that if they polled the same people and had them come up with the most influential experiments, the list would come out a little different.
Sure you can.
Of course, copyrighting an infinite sequence of non-repeating numbers may be difficult to define, but go for it.
Hardly. The inability to properly admin a system is biting them in the ass. The comments to Microsoft sucking when it comes to security still apply. When someone says that Linux is more secure than Windows, that is not saying it is perfect. Nobody in their right mind would say that any OS is totally secure. The difference is, it is a Linux community. People who find exploits should alert the community before releasing the information in the wild. The same applies to Windows, Microsoft should be alerted to the problem well before everyone else is. The difference is, the Open Source community will quickly patch it, Microsoft will do whatever they want to do.
There is nothing wrong with yelling at people about keeping their systems up to date. It is just bad practice to not keep up with patches. With Open Source, you can do that - with Windows, you can only do that if Microsoft provides you with patches. The OSS community has absolutely no say in how MS decides to handle vulnerabilities, but we do have a voice in our own community.
And if you think a worm or two means that now Linux is catching up to MS in the number of vulnerabilities, you are living in a dream world. Plagued? Please. At least the OSS community isn't delusional and says "there are no bugs".
I was using the previous poster's analogy, I agree it isn't the best. Modding your car may violate several STATE laws, and those laws are in place for safety or environmental reasons. They aren't in place in order to benefit the car manufacturer.
See, you were on the verge of making sense, until this part. If it were left at "if you hack the XBox, you void your warranty" that would be fine. If you are modding something, you don't care about the warranty. By putting DRM into the XBox, they are making it ILLEGAL to mod it. THAT is wrong. If you buy something, you have every right to mod it. You shouldn't expect support for it, but you have the right to mod it. Car makers don't care if you mod your car, but don't come crying to them if something goes wrong. They aren't trying to make it illegal to put aftermarket parts on your car. Microsoft is trying to make it ILLEGAL to modify a product that you (supposedly) own. This is precisely why Digital Restriction Management is wrong and bad for everyone except big companies.
And the use of the word hacker was in nation-wide usage in the 1980's? I really really doubt that. If it was in use, it was most certainly underground and not in mainstream media in any great capacity.
People who break into computer systems often identify themselves as "hackers". The politically correct thing to do is to allow them to self-identify.
Really? Hmm, I don't know anyone who breaks into computer systems who writes for the NY Times, or the Chicago Tribune, or any other major media outlet. Or are you telling me that all of the stories about "hackers" over the past decade have sources in the illegal hacker community? Interesting. Or maybe just BS. Do you honestly think that people reporting on people who break into computers ask them what they consider themselves to be?
Gee, so you consider yourself to be more educated about this issue than me, whooptie-do. You seem to be quite pleased to point it out, as an Anonymous Coward. I would think that such an educated person wouldn't stoop to the level of petty insults, no matter how cleverly and intellectually they try to phrase them. There is always going to be someone who is more educated in this or that. But it seems that no matter how smart some people claim to be, they can't resist the urge to act like an asshole.
Hope you feel educated after reading this.
Oh yes, great master, your vague references to "factual" events has greatly educated me. May I go now?
This may be true, but I refuse to use the term incorrectly when I know better. Please read the following. I did not write it, it is from someone on a mailing list, when someone misused the term "hacker", then argued that it was the accepted use of the word. The author puts it better than I ever could. (you can view the original post to the list here
-------
If you haven't already, read Orwell's "1984".
The use of words is absolutey critical, and using language for social engineering by governments, churches, and corporations is not the stuff of science fiction ... just ask anyone who works in marketing. It happens every
day, and the deleterious effects on our society and our world which result
are trivial to see. (ponder the definition of the word 'terrorist' and how
fluid it has become, and the real, physical consiquences which are apparent
and resulting in no small part from the misuse and mutation of that word)
Now think to yourself: Who owns the rights to every dictionary in circulation (Merriem-Webster, Oxford, what have you)?
That's right, the publishers. Organizations that have been members of the copyright cartel since the sixteenth century, a cartel which in its history had at least one person drawn and quartered for possessing a printing press and not being a member of the cartel.
With respect to the word 'hacker' it is highly debatable whether the misuse of the term was deliberately and knowingly inserted into the dictionary as a form of semantic engineering, or whether the publishers simply picked up on the misuse of the term being promoted and propogated by another copyright cartel: the entertainment cartel.
The same applies to the word 'piracy,' though poking through some very early dictionaries certainly suggests its definition was changed as part of a conscious effort at semantic engineering (the incorrect, propoganda definition of the word equating copyright violators with rapists, pillagers, and murderers on the high seas was in at least one dictionary long before misuse of the word had become widespread).
What is known for certain is that, for other words of political significance, dictionaries have been known to publich definitions adhering to one political agenda or another PRIOR to their widespread use in language. The "authority" of the dictionary has been used, more than once, to deliberately modify and change the use of language to promote a political agenda.
If you're really interested in such things, look up the history of the usage of the word 'he' and 'his' as a gender-neutral or gender-indeterminate pronoun. In the United States, the use of 'they' and 'their' (singular) was in widespread use around the turn of the 20th century. Grammaticians displaced that, deliberately, with 'he' and 'his'. One of the comments made by one of these early 'semantic engineers' was something to the effect of "as in nature, when there is a choice, the male pronoune shall dominate." It is only in recent years that the use of 'they' and 'their' (singular) as a gender-neutral pronoun has come back into use, despite the linguistic orthodoxy to the contrary.
There are other examples, indeed a plethora of them from the cold war and even the war on drugs.
In other words, blind faith in the dictionary is as misplaced as blind faith in anything else (e.g. religion, government, or McDonald's). The publishers have as many ulterior motives, and as unreliable ethics in persuing those motives, as every other industry has come to have.
You misused the word 'hacker' on a mailing list of people who know better. You were corrected, you have been educated, and your response is to call everyone a hypocrit.
A community of hackers, in the old and august meaning of the word, is not at all hypocrictical for being annoyed with you for misusing the term and equating them to a bunch of petty criminals, any more than a person of a particular ethnicity, who stands for freedom, is a hypocrit for being angry when another group deliberately denigrates them. Or, put another way, fighting speech with speech is not the same as advocating censorship, and you should recognize the difference.
Frankly, you should drop the attitude, admit you made a mistake, and move on. Everyone makes mistakes ... that is part of life. Clinging to them out of
stubbornness, however, is just silly.
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People must be crazy to spend $50 a month for internet access. I pay $12 for dial up, I can check my email while at work, and I have no good reason to get DSL. I just use email and surf a little.
After broadband:
I can't believe everyone doesn't have this! It is awesome, and worth every penny. Now my wife and I can both be on at the same time. We can check out what movies are playing without having to wait through a 10 minute moviefone advertisement call. No need to tune in to the annoying local news to get the weather. Pay bills online. Shopping. Games. Home web server to share pictures with out of town family and friends.
If you have it, you will use it. Always on is the best aspect of it, and I get fast speeds too. It is nice to be the LPB sometimes. :-)
Do you need that much processing power for a firewall? I run mine with a P166, and I don't see any issues. I doubt the CPU gets utilized much at all. It is quiet, doesn't take much power, and isn't too large. And it cost a lot less than $300. :-)
I am not ragging on your post, just that I wouldn't consider this a good firewall, it seems like more power than is necessary. There are off-the-shelf firewalls smaller and less powerful.
harumph.
- All inquiries regarding patron records are to be referred to library administration.
- No information will be provided without appropriate warrants and/or court orders.
- Before any search for information begins the library has the right to have an attorney examine any/all warrants and/or court orders to determine their validity, jurisdiction, and all other aspects of legal standing.
- The library, through its attorney has the right to additional judicial ruling on potentially suspect or questionable documentation before any search begins. (Right of appeal)
- The library has the right to have its attorney present at all times when any search activities are carried out.
This all sounds well and good, and may have a nice appearance. However, "having the right" to have an attorney do all these things and actually doing it are two different things.
Administration takes care of all issues, and if they so choose, may have an attorney step in. But that doesn't mean they will. If you were an administrator, and the FBI showed up with a warrant, what would you do? It takes some balls to stand up to them and say "No, I am going to have to contact an attorney". Good for you if you could do it, but I doubt most would.
Sorry, but this is BS. You can't say that the advice given by health professionals for the last 30 years isn't working, if NOBODY LISTENS TO THEM. I am not talking about the "breaking" studies you hear about on the stupid nightly news that says "eggs are bad" one week, and "eggs are good" the next. I am talking about a balanced diet.
You know what the problem is? Americans are lazy. American companies know this, and cater to it. (I am a born and raised American, BTW). Why do you think we have every conceivable convenience food in the store? Even things like chicken comes pre-cooked and cut up (complete with simulated grill marks on it). Everything is pre-packaged so you can just "heat and eat". It used to be just that way for kids, but now they are gearing it towards the family. It is pathetic.
I recently talked to a coworker who had been trying to lose weight. He was on an Atkins-like diet as prescribed by his doctor. He went off of it after a few weeks, and resumed smoking. Then he told me he had come up with his own diet - a gallon of water, and one meal a day. (atrocious idea of a diet) As he was telling me about this, at around 10:00 AM, he was buying a bag of chips out of the vending machine. I had nothing to say.
Now if people have been following the widely accepted recommended diet for the last 30 years, and it hasn't been working, then I would agree it is time to reevaluate it. But the FACT is, people don't follow the recommended diet. How many servings of fruits and vegetables did you have yesterday? Do you know how many are recommended? When I hear strong arguments for something, I always go back to the root of the argument and check the underlying assumption. Yours is that everyone has been eating a balanced diet for the last 30 years, and are still becoming obese. I think that argument is flawed.
I am 5'11", 175 and I work out at least 2 times a week. When there is a birthday at work, people will say "Come on, have a piece of cake, you're skinny". So I may have a small piece, as they sit there and eat one 3x the size of mine, joking "this is low fat, right? ha ha ha". People are lazy and in denial. I seriously wonder what the hell has happened to common sense.
Have you ever seen people from other countries? They lead different lifestyles. They don't have obesity problems like we do in the US. And I have observed that people who move here and stick to their way of life and diet don't fall into our obesity trap. Others do. And now the Western influence is creeping (or charging, rather) into other countries, and they are starting to see some weight problems emerge in their countries. What irks me is that we have no excuse. We have every advantage in the US, and we still can't seem to get it right. We are run by corporations who greedily feed on our laziness and apathy. But we let them.
Touche. But I really do know how to spell it. I don't think it is wrong to misspell a word (or even have a typo, which a lot of people mistake for misspellings). It happens, that is just a mistake. However, to continuously misuse words like contractions (they're, you're) is not the same thing. How can you look at "you're" (the apostrophe is there for a reason - it is in place of "a"), see that it means "you are" and STILL use it incorrectly? There is no excuse for that except for laziness. Now if you type "thier" instead of "their", big deal.
Yes, releasing a closed-beta seems to be in violation of the GPL, but how else would you do it? If you created some software, and you wanted to just give it to a few select people for evaluation, you couldn't do it under the GPL. Distribution is distribution, and you must allow them to re-distribute it. This seems like a flaw to me. This assumes, of course, that you are planning to "officially" release it at a later date under full compliance of the GPL. Hmm, anyone have an answer to this?
By the time HDTV is in wide use, we'll probably have terabyte drives on our desktops. :-)
But in reality, I would rather have the quantity instead of the quality. I mean, this is TV after all. Is there anything worth watching in high-definition? My friend has his TiVO networked throughout his house, and he has a 61" Mitsubishi HDTV set, and it is awesome. He gets some HDTV broadcasts, and he said you can really tell the difference. But in my mind, it isn't worth it. TV just isn't that interesting to me most of the time. What advantage do I get watching Iron Chef in high def? Now Blue Planet on the Discovery Channel would be incredible. But at this point, to choose between capacity or quality, I would go with capacity. In general, stations broadcast more crap instead of good programs. So if you are really that into TV you probably have many different shows you want to watch.
But then again, I don't even have a TiVO. And watching the Simpsons on DVD is weird, it is too crisp and clean. The poor broadcast quality of Fox adds some charm to it. :-)
Children!? How about adults? Kids are in the learning process, but there are way more adults who can't spell to save their ass. I can understand if you aren't very educated, buy many times they're college graduates. You're not going to impress me by your inability to use proper English spelling and grammer just because you're lazy and refuse to learn it.
Please note the proper use of their/there/they're and your/you're in the previous paragraph. And comments like "you know what I meant" or "don't be so nitpicky" don't fly. It is really sad when people whose first language isn't English can use the language as well or better than "native" speakers. This isn't difficult stuff.
Sorry, keyboards, mice, and joysticks don't control your data. Bottom line is I don't trust Microsoft - for very good reasons. They have continuously proved they are untrustworthy, before/during/after being found guilty of illegal monopolistic practices by the Department of Justice. I don't trust them - not because I am some zealot - but because they have proven over and over again that I have no reason to trust them.
Yes, I use one of their mice, because
a. it is a good product
b. it doesn't have anything to do with security
Microsoft sucks at security, they even admit that their products aren't engineered for security. Sure, that was in reference to their Operating Systems, but do you think they will suddenly see the light when it comes to hardware? Microsoft is crafty, they wouldn't be getting into networking hardware at this stage of the game just for the sake of doing it. There is a reason, and they are trying to weasel their way in to gain control. Period.