I never got into the UO experience, because I was still a FPS player when that game was around. Then my friends freshman year of college got me into EQ, which I played for about 2 years, with a couple 2 month breaks. Eventually, it finally dawned on me that no matter what class/race combo I decided to play on EQ the game was always painfully the same:
Click on mob, hit series of buttons, loot.
The exp was painful, the graphics were boring, and there wasn't anything to really do but level. Even tradeskills were painfully tedious and problematic.
Then I moved on to DAOC. I played it for a few weeks at launch, then swore off MMORPGs and went back to FPS, mainly a matter of 'why am I paying $13 a month to sit around and whack stuff with a stick'?
So to make a long story short, I'm back with DAOC, and here's why I'm not going to play SWG. First of all, I am happy with DAOC: the gameplay is great, player vs. player interactions are awesome, and the professions are actually quite different from each other which makes alt characters a different game for the most part. SWG, I'm not sure if it still is, was planned to be a 1 char. per server game, which I can't stand. I love alts, I play a ton of alts, I can't get enough alts. I have about 20 chars spread across 3 servers of DAOC. One char per server just encourages people to get multiple accounts and be power players (gaming holy war commence). Second, the player driven economy is just going to encourage inflation. Think about it, there are NO merchants. What does that mean? There are no monetary sinks in the game. All of the money ever made will continue to be circulated amongst the player base. None of the money will ever leave circulation! That means rampant inflation and people trying to be uberly rich.
Combine it with the majority opinion that the game has nothing to do (which was a compaint of mine in EQ where all there was to do was level), and it seems like the game will just be a Star Wars mod for EQ. Hence I'll stick with DAOC, where the leveling is relatively fast, the money isn't the important part, and the gameplay is varied and superb.
"...citing the difficulties and pressure surrounding making a cohesive statement..."
If that is what is stopping them from making CDs, I would have figured they should have stopped long ago. I don't know if I've ever heard a cohesive statement come out of a Radiohead CD, or interview for that matter.
Maybe if artists made more than one good track per album, people would buy the whole thing instead of the one good song. I mean really, who wants to pay $15 for a CD with one good track and a bunch of crap? Granted, I'm sitting here listening to Pink Floyd atm, so you can probably tell I'm not all that big on modern pop music to begin with. But really, this has been a growing trend over the last few decades (getting really problematic in the late 90s and early 00s), where a band is signed, makes one song, the record company makes bank off selling that one song to everyone, then away they go into the dustbin of history. Make good music and people will buy whole CDs of it. Make crap and people will 'pirate' it or buy just the single good tracks, it seems pretty straight forward to me.
...that hasn't already been said about Afghistan. It looks bombed out and depleted. (previous lines stolen from Dave Chappelle).
In my opinion, the following quote sums it all up:
Darl McBride, CEO SCO (Link to Article) "The fact that Linux shows up in town and everybody gets excited about it because they get the same sort of value we had with UnixWare but they don't have to pay anything--I get why customers like that. It's the same reason everybody loved Napster--you get CDs for free."
There you go folks, it all boils down to Linux = Napster, and if you aren't paying out the ass for software you are stealing it, no matter what the 'license' says. It all belongs to SCO and no matter what Linus nor IBM nor anyone else says, 'its all the branch of the same tree'...sounds pretty compelling when you are a company going out of business and you exist in a country who's legal system is sold to the highest bidder. I still hold my position that if the code was stolen and copied out of something that SCO rightfully owns, then more power to them, I hope they get their fair compensation because it would be the correrct thing to do. But all indications I see seem to point to a situation where SCO was displaced by Linux and now they are trying to suck anything they can out of the situation before going titsup.com.
What a bunch of mark ass marks, trick ass marks, skip skak skanks and skalliwags! (Dave Chapelle again, thank god he's not licensed by SCO)
Where you can always count on the flames being modded up to Insightful...
Anyways, sure the original post was a bit off I think, but it was a perfectly legitimate "what-if" in my mind, no need to flame him all to hell for posing the question. How it got included in the day's headlines I'm not sure, but I would seriously doubt nobody in the studio audience here has pondered a similar idea. No need to flame him for asking a question and trying to start a discussion. Uh oh, I feel warm already....FLAMES AWAY!
As far as my thoughts on the subject...I don't think it would work technologically. I think the political barriers would be IMMENSE (ie: who would govern what is 'right and decent' to allow through the 'network', normal political BS that goes on anyway and would be hugely amplified by this type of thing), and I don't know if people would be ready for it (I mean really, do you really want everyone in the world bouncing through your computer to get their kiddie pron? Do you want to be held legally responsible if they do, because you know somehow a government would make you be held liable for what users access through your hops?)
Oh well, flame away, this probably isn't that useful a post on this thread, but mainly because I have to pee and am trying to be brief.
Oddly enough this was the same code that the SCO Lawsuit Generator used to check the corporate payroll account before starting this whole lawsuit to begin with...
Overall, if some code was 'stolen' then I think SCO has an IP claim and should legitimately be compensated forthwith. But I think I'm beating a dead horse when I say that this whole thing is fishy and I doubt SCO has any legitimate claim. In order to prove to me that the code in question was stolen, I would have to: a) see the code b) learn how the code itself was generated. I have one of those feelings that the code in question is going to be ludicrously common and will probably have been copied from another piece of code to begin with. These are all questions outside of the Novell claim that SCO doesn't own the copyright anyways, which seems to be a valid argument.
This is why I should have gone to law school instead of getting into computers. =)
...but that's because I'm working on a corona after finishing my prob and stats final (last final for the semester).
Ben Stein's personal political affiliations aside, I think he makes some really good points about the dumbing down of the masses and over-litigation of big business. However, I think the biggest point that he makes is that people need to take responsibility for their own actions. If your school sucks, then why don't you take some personal responsibility and go out and educate yourself? How many people here learned how to program computers or fix cars or whatever you do solely in school? I'd be willing to bet not many. A lot of people go out and learn things that interest them, then go to school to further that knowledge. Even in middle and high school my friends and I tweaked around with little electronics and Ataris and whatnot, then learned some basic programming, then went out and learned C and C++. This type of thing wasn't really ever taught in my public school, but it didn't stop us from learning it.
Also, if people took responsibility for their own actions, we wouldn't have so many frivolous lawsuits. The lady who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonald's should never have won that case. She should he realized that drinking coffee and driving is not a recommended activity and it wasn't McDonald's fault. People who smoke have no grounds to sue tobacco companies, its not like we haven't known cigarettes were bad for at least 20 or 30 years. As Denid Leary says, "Whoa, these things are bad for you, I thought they had Vitamin C in them and stuff" C'mon people wake up.
Seriously, if people would take responsibility for their own actions and be a little self-motivated when it comes to learning we would be a lot more innovative. After all you can't learn innovative thinking in schools, you just have to go out and do it.
As a sidenote, I didn't really agree with his point about elevating voodoo and shamanism being a bad thing, but then again that's part of that Right Wing propaganda that I said I was going to ignore anyways.
...well for any of us who are fans of Robert Anton Wilson and the Illuminatus, this is funny as hell. I like the 9th personally (always have, not just since reading the Illuminatus and watching Clockwork Orange), but seriously, why make it RealMedia? How the hell am I supposed to sit there streaming 24 hours of music divided into 17 pieces? Its not like Beethoven is somehow copyrighted by the RIAA (I don't think anyways, I could be wrong), use a real format like ogg or (*flamebait*) mp3 and let me download it all and listen on my own time.
Hell, I've got the movements, maybe I'll go do it myself....when I get a few days of extra time on my hands.
Ok, here's my take on this, I know its probably been said a hundred times already and/or I'm gonna get ripped up, but here goes the proverbial toe in the water of this debate for me:
1) If you're using IE you should realize that you are lucky if a day goes by and your system is not formatted or taken over by script kiddies.
2) M$ probably will not issue a patch in a timely manner anyways, whether or not they are notified and the exploit code is realeased.
3) The code will get around the internet anyways, with or without Bugtraq. Script kiddies will get it from other public forums.
4) Most importantly (and perhaps up for debate): Having access to exploit code allows people to play around with security fixes until they can solve the problem themselves. Sure, you can just look at the fixes posted by the people who find the exploits, but its better to tinker and try to solve the problem yourself and learn. The code itself isn't intrinsically bad, its the intent of the people with it. Its like gun control in America (ok, trying to hold top on can of worms now). Personally I don't think we should restrict access to exploit code (or guns for that matter...DAMMIT WORMS GET BACK IN THERE!!!) because people could do bad things with it. Those people will get their hands on the code anyways, or just go find new ways of doing bad things because that's what bad people do.
What's that? you already knew that? Then why are you reading this thread because we all already knew this too....but it doesn't stop us from getting out the "I hate microsoft" for the day.
This is from the first article referenced, the one about products not being engineered for security. Where Valentine says that it applies to Linux and Unix as well...
Right so granted OpenBSD did have that 1 security hole, and there's the Ramen worm for Linux right? So yeah, how many different holes and viruses came out for Windows YESTERDAY? Right, Industry wide problem my ass...unless of course you redefine computers in general to be the Microsoft Industry.
...on what you mean by "success". If you mean making good music and getting fans and playing shows then you're there. However, if you mean that you want to be the next Tool or *insert big name band here* then you either have to sell out, put in a ton of years in the hope that a non-evil record company signs you and can promote you, or just try it all from scratch with your own promotion and record company (see NOFX, MC Hammer (pre-Capital records, yadda yadda)). But yeah, I'm not in the business, so take this with a grain of salt, its just how I perceive it happening, I could be way off.
You all already know what I'm gonna say here because its been said over and over again by those people who AREN'T simply trying to fleece the powers that be out of money. Its the same thing with "Face Recognition" in airports, or "Brainwave Detection" in airports, or any of the slew of anti-virus/anti-haxor bs that goes around. Doc-Witness is a company that wants to make money by selling something obviously ludicrous to a group of companies willing to throw any amount of money at a problem that isn't really that big of a deal.
You wanna stop music and video "piracy", and make sales go up? Stop putting out crap artists, and terrible movies. Its the biggest hypocrisy going that the RIAA and MPAA are making legal cases out of "intellectual property theft", they haven't had an original idea in decades.
Everyone is in computer science for the money these days.
We tried to get an Open Source Development group together at my school, 5 people showed up. One guys was like, "With Open Source we can go download everyone's source code and resell it for thousands of dollars. Its work free!" Yeah, ummm....I think he kinda missed the boat...
Too many colleges are indebited to M$ and so that mentality is pervasive in Colleges and Universities. I'm sure a good portion of undergradatues across the US (I can guarantee that's the case at my school) haven't ever been to Sourceforge.
A bunch of rednecks in Texas does not count as a "well-regulated militia", the NRA does not count as a well-regulated militia either. But then again, I guess skimming the constitution and re-wording it is as good as anything else right?
I believe that 3333t001 was referring to the terrorists who want to destroy the American way of life as the terrorists. They have the political goal of destroying the American way of life. By restricting these liberties and freedoms and rights and whatever else you wanna call them, the government of the US is helping the terrorists acheive these goals......correct me if I'm wrong.....I don't know, I'm starting to lose interest and desire to care about my "liberties" anymore.
Do I dare say that W has been a great leader during all this? No. Would Al have been any better? No.
By alluding to this as a wartime attack, Bush is adding undue stress on the subject. This was not Pearl Harbor II, this was not a strike by a militaristic nation. We will fire back militarily, showing our lack of innovation. This was the same lack of creativity and intelligent thinking that led us into Vietnam and got us trounced at that time.
"Never get into a ground war in Asia" *shrug* not sure if it applies today, but getting into a ground war in which the staging area of our troops will be in enemy territory would be a bad thing. I honestly don't think that Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, or Iran would be all too happy to stage American troops, but oh well, I guess Tomahawk missile supplies are infinite right? Hell, they are "smart weapons" right? So theoretically even if we have NO IDEA where Osama is, they can find him....sure, why not? Hell, why not just kill all the Arabs, aren't they all to blame anyways? Hell, the Soviet Union took over Afghanistan in the 80s, so we can too right....oh wait, they got worked, just like we will. Stupid politicians.
Why isn't the status quo sufficient? We have had what, 3 acts of terrorism in how many years of existance? I mean, planes get hijacked all over the world, and bombed all over the world, but we have had 3 acts of external terrorism (excluding Ok. City, cuz that was domestic terrorism, which I feel is a whole different beast). Why don't we just maintain status quo? Yeah, its pretty disgraceful security, but the point being, maybe if we pursued some other angle we could become less of a target of attack and not have to implement security policies like those being discussed? *cough* not pissing off the whole world with arrogance and ignorance *cough*
Just something to stir up the stagnant pot of the discussion lately
I go live in Israel, where they have intense airport restrictions, marshalls on the planes, and police in the streets. I feel "secure", then I'm eating in a pizza shop and a guy, who got through all this "security" sits next to me and blows up the building. I'm dead. I guess all that security kinda seems frivolous now doesn't it?
Actually a one-way ticket to Kabul would be the opposite of unrestricted freedom.....I think, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Afghanistan is the bastion of freedom in the Middle East, am I wrong in assuming this?
Second, how exactly do you advocate this system where the government can tap phone lines without having "free reign to listen and act on conversations freely"? Yes, September 11 is being used as a warrant to go about with increased surveillance, but what I want to know is how exactly can you give the government more leeway without impinging on the rights on general citizens? Mohommed Ataa was in the country getting flying lessons without the FBI even knowing, so what are they gonna do, tap only his phone? Its kinda hard to tap the phone of an individual who isn't even known to exist in the country.
The bottom line is this, and is overly cliche'd: You can't protect freedom and "democracy" by destroying it.
"This is not the time for dissent" Yes, just follow mindlessly and believe what the government and media tell you. Democracy is built on dissent, without it, you don't have a need for democracy.
There is no such thing as airtight security. A terrorist who works as a baggage handler doesn't have to worry about getting a bomb aboard a plane does he? Just look at the pilot of the EgyptAir crash, he was working for years and was "mentally stable", but if we take the explanation at face value then he crashed the plane despite security and background checks. There's always a way around anything.
I've lived for 20 years, and sure I've "enjoyed my liberty". But if you lay down and demand security at all cost then you aren't going to have any liberty to enjoy.
As for this being a small issue, then I think you should wake up. EVERYTHING is becoming a technology issue. I think that the liberty that you want to live to enjoy is a huge issue, and technology, whether it be to spy on me or make my coffee, is a huge part of that liberty. Look at the DMCA, if I move to Sweden to save any chance of being a content individual who doesn't live in the bouncer of the world, then I have to buy new DVD hardware or risk being arrested by the US government, what kind of liberty is that?
"Unreasonable" is a very vague term, and gives rise to statements like "if you aren't doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about"
While I'm not fully against having face recognition in airports for security measures, there is no guarantee that you won't be detained for no reason. One of the articles (sorry for not linking, I know it lowers my credibility) stated that 1 out 5 people at last year's Super Bowl were identified as Carlos the Jackal. A face recognition system is only as good as the database of known images, the algorithms developed, and the people who monitor the system daily. I really don't want to know that someone is watching my every movement, but then again that's me. As with computers, there's always a hole in security. If the terrorists really did have, as the media is reporting, secure area passes, then all the passenger security in the world isn't gonna matter. They can just go through the back door. Not to be cliche'd, but heightening security will only cause undue delays, our airports are a disgrace, but at the same time, terrorists can always get into the country and operate, no matter how we tighten the noose around security. If I wanted to fly an airline like El Al, then I'll go to Israel and fly El Al, I don't want to have that kind of presence on my domestic flights.
Slashdot Mirror
I never got into the UO experience, because I was still a FPS player when that game was around. Then my friends freshman year of college got me into EQ, which I played for about 2 years, with a couple 2 month breaks. Eventually, it finally dawned on me that no matter what class/race combo I decided to play on EQ the game was always painfully the same:
Click on mob, hit series of buttons, loot.
The exp was painful, the graphics were boring, and there wasn't anything to really do but level. Even tradeskills were painfully tedious and problematic.
Then I moved on to DAOC. I played it for a few weeks at launch, then swore off MMORPGs and went back to FPS, mainly a matter of 'why am I paying $13 a month to sit around and whack stuff with a stick'?
So to make a long story short, I'm back with DAOC, and here's why I'm not going to play SWG. First of all, I am happy with DAOC: the gameplay is great, player vs. player interactions are awesome, and the professions are actually quite different from each other which makes alt characters a different game for the most part. SWG, I'm not sure if it still is, was planned to be a 1 char. per server game, which I can't stand. I love alts, I play a ton of alts, I can't get enough alts. I have about 20 chars spread across 3 servers of DAOC. One char per server just encourages people to get multiple accounts and be power players (gaming holy war commence). Second, the player driven economy is just going to encourage inflation. Think about it, there are NO merchants. What does that mean? There are no monetary sinks in the game. All of the money ever made will continue to be circulated amongst the player base. None of the money will ever leave circulation! That means rampant inflation and people trying to be uberly rich.
Combine it with the majority opinion that the game has nothing to do (which was a compaint of mine in EQ where all there was to do was level), and it seems like the game will just be a Star Wars mod for EQ. Hence I'll stick with DAOC, where the leveling is relatively fast, the money isn't the important part, and the gameplay is varied and superb.
...about the RIAA, that hasn't already been said about Afghanistan. They look bombed out, and depleted.
I promise I'll stop using this joke soon...if you laugh I'll stop sooner.
Partial Quote:
"...citing the difficulties and pressure surrounding making a cohesive statement..."
If that is what is stopping them from making CDs, I would have figured they should have stopped long ago. I don't know if I've ever heard a cohesive statement come out of a Radiohead CD, or interview for that matter.
Maybe if artists made more than one good track per album, people would buy the whole thing instead of the one good song. I mean really, who wants to pay $15 for a CD with one good track and a bunch of crap? Granted, I'm sitting here listening to Pink Floyd atm, so you can probably tell I'm not all that big on modern pop music to begin with. But really, this has been a growing trend over the last few decades (getting really problematic in the late 90s and early 00s), where a band is signed, makes one song, the record company makes bank off selling that one song to everyone, then away they go into the dustbin of history. Make good music and people will buy whole CDs of it. Make crap and people will 'pirate' it or buy just the single good tracks, it seems pretty straight forward to me.
...that hasn't already been said about Afghistan. It looks bombed out and depleted. (previous lines stolen from Dave Chappelle).
In my opinion, the following quote sums it all up:
Darl McBride, CEO SCO (Link to Article)
"The fact that Linux shows up in town and everybody gets excited about it because they get the same sort of value we had with UnixWare but they don't have to pay anything--I get why customers like that. It's the same reason everybody loved Napster--you get CDs for free."
There you go folks, it all boils down to Linux = Napster, and if you aren't paying out the ass for software you are stealing it, no matter what the 'license' says. It all belongs to SCO and no matter what Linus nor IBM nor anyone else says, 'its all the branch of the same tree'...sounds pretty compelling when you are a company going out of business and you exist in a country who's legal system is sold to the highest bidder. I still hold my position that if the code was stolen and copied out of something that SCO rightfully owns, then more power to them, I hope they get their fair compensation because it would be the correrct thing to do. But all indications I see seem to point to a situation where SCO was displaced by Linux and now they are trying to suck anything they can out of the situation before going titsup.com.
What a bunch of mark ass marks, trick ass marks, skip skak skanks and skalliwags! (Dave Chapelle again, thank god he's not licensed by SCO)
Where you can always count on the flames being modded up to Insightful...
Anyways, sure the original post was a bit off I think, but it was a perfectly legitimate "what-if" in my mind, no need to flame him all to hell for posing the question. How it got included in the day's headlines I'm not sure, but I would seriously doubt nobody in the studio audience here has pondered a similar idea. No need to flame him for asking a question and trying to start a discussion. Uh oh, I feel warm already....FLAMES AWAY!
As far as my thoughts on the subject...I don't think it would work technologically. I think the political barriers would be IMMENSE (ie: who would govern what is 'right and decent' to allow through the 'network', normal political BS that goes on anyway and would be hugely amplified by this type of thing), and I don't know if people would be ready for it (I mean really, do you really want everyone in the world bouncing through your computer to get their kiddie pron? Do you want to be held legally responsible if they do, because you know somehow a government would make you be held liable for what users access through your hops?)
Oh well, flame away, this probably isn't that useful a post on this thread, but mainly because I have to pee and am trying to be brief.
Boycott? I thought that required actual paying customers? I thought the last time SCO had any of those was First Quarter of 2001...
if (empty)
return 1;
Oddly enough this was the same code that the SCO Lawsuit Generator used to check the corporate payroll account before starting this whole lawsuit to begin with...
Overall, if some code was 'stolen' then I think SCO has an IP claim and should legitimately be compensated forthwith. But I think I'm beating a dead horse when I say that this whole thing is fishy and I doubt SCO has any legitimate claim. In order to prove to me that the code in question was stolen, I would have to: a) see the code b) learn how the code itself was generated. I have one of those feelings that the code in question is going to be ludicrously common and will probably have been copied from another piece of code to begin with. These are all questions outside of the Novell claim that SCO doesn't own the copyright anyways, which seems to be a valid argument.
This is why I should have gone to law school instead of getting into computers. =)
...but that's because I'm working on a corona after finishing my prob and stats final (last final for the semester).
Ben Stein's personal political affiliations aside, I think he makes some really good points about the dumbing down of the masses and over-litigation of big business. However, I think the biggest point that he makes is that people need to take responsibility for their own actions. If your school sucks, then why don't you take some personal responsibility and go out and educate yourself? How many people here learned how to program computers or fix cars or whatever you do solely in school? I'd be willing to bet not many. A lot of people go out and learn things that interest them, then go to school to further that knowledge. Even in middle and high school my friends and I tweaked around with little electronics and Ataris and whatnot, then learned some basic programming, then went out and learned C and C++. This type of thing wasn't really ever taught in my public school, but it didn't stop us from learning it.
Also, if people took responsibility for their own actions, we wouldn't have so many frivolous lawsuits. The lady who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonald's should never have won that case. She should he realized that drinking coffee and driving is not a recommended activity and it wasn't McDonald's fault. People who smoke have no grounds to sue tobacco companies, its not like we haven't known cigarettes were bad for at least 20 or 30 years. As Denid Leary says, "Whoa, these things are bad for you, I thought they had Vitamin C in them and stuff" C'mon people wake up.
Seriously, if people would take responsibility for their own actions and be a little self-motivated when it comes to learning we would be a lot more innovative. After all you can't learn innovative thinking in schools, you just have to go out and do it.
As a sidenote, I didn't really agree with his point about elevating voodoo and shamanism being a bad thing, but then again that's part of that Right Wing propaganda that I said I was going to ignore anyways.
...well for any of us who are fans of Robert Anton Wilson and the Illuminatus, this is funny as hell. I like the 9th personally (always have, not just since reading the Illuminatus and watching Clockwork Orange), but seriously, why make it RealMedia? How the hell am I supposed to sit there streaming 24 hours of music divided into 17 pieces? Its not like Beethoven is somehow copyrighted by the RIAA (I don't think anyways, I could be wrong), use a real format like ogg or (*flamebait*) mp3 and let me download it all and listen on my own time.
Hell, I've got the movements, maybe I'll go do it myself....when I get a few days of extra time on my hands.
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it!
Ok, here's my take on this, I know its probably been said a hundred times already and/or I'm gonna get ripped up, but here goes the proverbial toe in the water of this debate for me:
1) If you're using IE you should realize that you are lucky if a day goes by and your system is not formatted or taken over by script kiddies.
2) M$ probably will not issue a patch in a timely manner anyways, whether or not they are notified and the exploit code is realeased.
3) The code will get around the internet anyways, with or without Bugtraq. Script kiddies will get it from other public forums.
4) Most importantly (and perhaps up for debate): Having access to exploit code allows people to play around with security fixes until they can solve the problem themselves. Sure, you can just look at the fixes posted by the people who find the exploits, but its better to tinker and try to solve the problem yourself and learn. The code itself isn't intrinsically bad, its the intent of the people with it. Its like gun control in America (ok, trying to hold top on can of worms now). Personally I don't think we should restrict access to exploit code (or guns for that matter...DAMMIT WORMS GET BACK IN THERE!!!) because people could do bad things with it. Those people will get their hands on the code anyways, or just go find new ways of doing bad things because that's what bad people do.
...the sun came up today.
What's that? you already knew that? Then why are you reading this thread because we all already knew this too....but it doesn't stop us from getting out the "I hate microsoft" for the day.
Sorry, I'm just really bored.
This is from the first article referenced, the one about products not being engineered for security. Where Valentine says that it applies to Linux and Unix as well...
Right so granted OpenBSD did have that 1 security hole, and there's the Ramen worm for Linux right? So yeah, how many different holes and viruses came out for Windows YESTERDAY? Right, Industry wide problem my ass...unless of course you redefine computers in general to be the Microsoft Industry.
Stupid cop-out.
...on what you mean by "success". If you mean making good music and getting fans and playing shows then you're there. However, if you mean that you want to be the next Tool or *insert big name band here* then you either have to sell out, put in a ton of years in the hope that a non-evil record company signs you and can promote you, or just try it all from scratch with your own promotion and record company (see NOFX, MC Hammer (pre-Capital records, yadda yadda)). But yeah, I'm not in the business, so take this with a grain of salt, its just how I perceive it happening, I could be way off.
Flames Away!
You all already know what I'm gonna say here because its been said over and over again by those people who AREN'T simply trying to fleece the powers that be out of money. Its the same thing with "Face Recognition" in airports, or "Brainwave Detection" in airports, or any of the slew of anti-virus/anti-haxor bs that goes around. Doc-Witness is a company that wants to make money by selling something obviously ludicrous to a group of companies willing to throw any amount of money at a problem that isn't really that big of a deal.
You wanna stop music and video "piracy", and make sales go up? Stop putting out crap artists, and terrible movies. Its the biggest hypocrisy going that the RIAA and MPAA are making legal cases out of "intellectual property theft", they haven't had an original idea in decades.
Everyone is in computer science for the money these days.
We tried to get an Open Source Development group together at my school, 5 people showed up. One guys was like, "With Open Source we can go download everyone's source code and resell it for thousands of dollars. Its work free!" Yeah, ummm....I think he kinda missed the boat...
Too many colleges are indebited to M$ and so that mentality is pervasive in Colleges and Universities. I'm sure a good portion of undergradatues across the US (I can guarantee that's the case at my school) haven't ever been to Sourceforge.
Couldn't you just use Opera and change what it identifies itself as? I know this works on other sites that give a similar message.
I won't say anything except this:
A bunch of rednecks in Texas does not count as a "well-regulated militia", the NRA does not count as a well-regulated militia either. But then again, I guess skimming the constitution and re-wording it is as good as anything else right?
I believe that 3333t001 was referring to the terrorists who want to destroy the American way of life as the terrorists. They have the political goal of destroying the American way of life. By restricting these liberties and freedoms and rights and whatever else you wanna call them, the government of the US is helping the terrorists acheive these goals......correct me if I'm wrong.....I don't know, I'm starting to lose interest and desire to care about my "liberties" anymore.
Politicians are politicians....nuff said
Do I dare say that W has been a great leader during all this? No. Would Al have been any better? No.
By alluding to this as a wartime attack, Bush is adding undue stress on the subject. This was not Pearl Harbor II, this was not a strike by a militaristic nation. We will fire back militarily, showing our lack of innovation. This was the same lack of creativity and intelligent thinking that led us into Vietnam and got us trounced at that time.
"Never get into a ground war in Asia" *shrug* not sure if it applies today, but getting into a ground war in which the staging area of our troops will be in enemy territory would be a bad thing. I honestly don't think that Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, or Iran would be all too happy to stage American troops, but oh well, I guess Tomahawk missile supplies are infinite right? Hell, they are "smart weapons" right? So theoretically even if we have NO IDEA where Osama is, they can find him....sure, why not? Hell, why not just kill all the Arabs, aren't they all to blame anyways? Hell, the Soviet Union took over Afghanistan in the 80s, so we can too right....oh wait, they got worked, just like we will. Stupid politicians.
Why isn't the status quo sufficient? We have had what, 3 acts of terrorism in how many years of existance? I mean, planes get hijacked all over the world, and bombed all over the world, but we have had 3 acts of external terrorism (excluding Ok. City, cuz that was domestic terrorism, which I feel is a whole different beast). Why don't we just maintain status quo? Yeah, its pretty disgraceful security, but the point being, maybe if we pursued some other angle we could become less of a target of attack and not have to implement security policies like those being discussed? *cough* not pissing off the whole world with arrogance and ignorance *cough*
Just something to stir up the stagnant pot of the discussion lately
So then, how about this scenario:
I go live in Israel, where they have intense airport restrictions, marshalls on the planes, and police in the streets. I feel "secure", then I'm eating in a pizza shop and a guy, who got through all this "security" sits next to me and blows up the building. I'm dead. I guess all that security kinda seems frivolous now doesn't it?
Actually a one-way ticket to Kabul would be the opposite of unrestricted freedom.....I think, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Afghanistan is the bastion of freedom in the Middle East, am I wrong in assuming this?
Second, how exactly do you advocate this system where the government can tap phone lines without having "free reign to listen and act on conversations freely"? Yes, September 11 is being used as a warrant to go about with increased surveillance, but what I want to know is how exactly can you give the government more leeway without impinging on the rights on general citizens? Mohommed Ataa was in the country getting flying lessons without the FBI even knowing, so what are they gonna do, tap only his phone? Its kinda hard to tap the phone of an individual who isn't even known to exist in the country.
The bottom line is this, and is overly cliche'd: You can't protect freedom and "democracy" by destroying it.
"This is not the time for dissent" Yes, just follow mindlessly and believe what the government and media tell you. Democracy is built on dissent, without it, you don't have a need for democracy.
There is no such thing as airtight security. A terrorist who works as a baggage handler doesn't have to worry about getting a bomb aboard a plane does he? Just look at the pilot of the EgyptAir crash, he was working for years and was "mentally stable", but if we take the explanation at face value then he crashed the plane despite security and background checks. There's always a way around anything.
I've lived for 20 years, and sure I've "enjoyed my liberty". But if you lay down and demand security at all cost then you aren't going to have any liberty to enjoy.
As for this being a small issue, then I think you should wake up. EVERYTHING is becoming a technology issue. I think that the liberty that you want to live to enjoy is a huge issue, and technology, whether it be to spy on me or make my coffee, is a huge part of that liberty. Look at the DMCA, if I move to Sweden to save any chance of being a content individual who doesn't live in the bouncer of the world, then I have to buy new DVD hardware or risk being arrested by the US government, what kind of liberty is that?
"Unreasonable" is a very vague term, and gives rise to statements like "if you aren't doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about"
While I'm not fully against having face recognition in airports for security measures, there is no guarantee that you won't be detained for no reason. One of the articles (sorry for not linking, I know it lowers my credibility) stated that 1 out 5 people at last year's Super Bowl were identified as Carlos the Jackal. A face recognition system is only as good as the database of known images, the algorithms developed, and the people who monitor the system daily. I really don't want to know that someone is watching my every movement, but then again that's me. As with computers, there's always a hole in security. If the terrorists really did have, as the media is reporting, secure area passes, then all the passenger security in the world isn't gonna matter. They can just go through the back door. Not to be cliche'd, but heightening security will only cause undue delays, our airports are a disgrace, but at the same time, terrorists can always get into the country and operate, no matter how we tighten the noose around security. If I wanted to fly an airline like El Al, then I'll go to Israel and fly El Al, I don't want to have that kind of presence on my domestic flights.